


Shelter

by rahleeyah



Category: The Doctor Blake Mysteries
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:42:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 51
Words: 124,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25529866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rahleeyah/pseuds/rahleeyah
Summary: When Jean is afflicted by a terrible illness Lucien will do whatever it takes to save her, despite their strained personal circumstances.
Relationships: Jean Beazley/Lucien Blake
Comments: 125
Kudos: 113





	1. Chapter 1

Lucien Blake would not describe himself as the sort of man who brooded about things. Focused, yes - when it suited him. Dedicated, yes - to the matters he found most compelling, regardless of where other people thought he ought to be directing his energies. Stubborn, perhaps - there was the matter of that painting at the Colonists' recently. _Why did you even bother, Lucien?_ Jean had asked him exasperatedly one night. _You hate that place and everything it stands for. So why do you keep going back and causing trouble, when you know it's never going to change?_ As far as Lucien was concerned _that_ was the biggest difference between himself and everyone else in this staid, stifling town; they all believed that everything would continue on as it was, forever, and that the feeble thrashings of a single man would not be sufficient to produce any real progress. Lucien had himself endured too much change, too much tumult, too many shocks and too many losses to believe in such a consistent, unchanging world. _Life is chaos,_ that much Lucien did believe, and the actions of one man - or woman - could have far reaching consequences.

He had suffered a great deal and he had lost a great deal and sometimes he was consumed with melancholy but _no,_ he did not brood; he was, however, certain that was precisely how Jean would describe his behavior at the moment. He was sitting alone in his father's surgery; his surgery, now. The old man had died four months before, just after Lucien had come home to settle his father's affairs, determined to leave again at the first possible opportunity, but Ballarat, like some great, terrible leviathan, had flung its tentacles around him and pulled him to its bosom once more, and though he struggled and flailed and bit and gnashed at the great beast the town held him fast. It had started innocuously enough; the old man was in hospital, and Matthew Lawson hadn't gotten around to replacing him as police surgeon, and the pathology registrar was on holiday, and could Lucien come and have a look at this body they'd just pulled out of the lake, please? And then, while he was caught up in that - rather exciting - mystery, Nell Clasby had come round, and sat at the table sipping tea with Jean, and when Jean heard the extent of the old lady's personal woes she had insisted _you must speak with the doctor,_ and arranged an appointment for Lucien to see to Nell himself. Without consulting him. And the Nell had rung her friends and told them young Doctor Blake was open for business, and Lucien had received a hopeful letter from Mr. Kim the private investigator, and young Nurse O'Brien and Jean would both be homeless if he just _left,_ and Patrick Tyneman of all people had sorted a membership at the Colonists' and _bloody hell,_ this place was home again.

So Lucien sat, alone, in his father's surgery, well past bedtime, sipping at his fourth glass of whiskey and reviewing patient notes. If he was to be a doctor once more, if he was to take responsibility for all these people's care, he likewise felt a duty to at least attempt to get to know their histories, no matter how distasteful the prospect of his continued imprisonment in Ballarat might have been for him personally. Perhaps his countenance seemed a bit gruff, and perhaps he looked a bit pouty as he read over the notes, disapproving of his father's untidy record keeping, symptoms and suggestions and fragments of thought spilled out across half-used pages, none of it coherent, none of it designed with the thought that one day Lucien might need this information in mind.

"Thanks for that, dad," he grumbled.

Lucien had no sooner spoken than there came a knock upon the door, and he jumped, terrified for one mad moment that the ghost of his father had come calling. He hadn't, of course; Thomas Blake had been buried for four months, and the apparition in his surgery doorway just now was of an altogether different sort.

"Lucien?" Jean called, sounding somewhat surprised to hear him still up and about at this hour, not that he felt she had any right to be; surely by now the woman must have realized that the younger Doctor Blake did not keep regular hours.

When Lucien Blake first met Jean Beazley he had been caught off guard by how _beautiful_ she was, with her soft hair, her bright eyes, her delicate cheeks, a dancer's easy grace, but then she had opened her mouth, and her beauty had ceased to be her defining trait. There was steel in her bones, and fire in her heart, and she disapproved of him in every way it was possible for a woman to disapprove of a man. He was too loud, too disorganized, too cavalier, too selfish; he left a mess everywhere he went and never stopped to think of the impact his actions might have on others. At least, that was how she would have described him, Jean who was as judgmental and set in her ways as the town that had given birth to her, Jean whose disappointment haunted him everywhere he went. Another failure, he thought; they could have been friends but had settled instead into a pained sort of politeness, Jean organizing his schedule and his home and trying her best to keep him fed while offering him little of the warmth he saw her direct to Danny, to Mattie, to Nell bloody Clasby. Sometimes when she looked at him he almost got the sense that she was afraid of him, somehow, handling him like a grenade that might explode at any moment.

They had come close to a breakthrough, he thought, during the incident with the painting. Lucien had finally conceded defeat, admitted that his point had been made and he had ruffled enough feathers at the club and his painting would never hang there, no matter what he did. It was a beautiful painting, and he had paid rather a lot for it, and it had been in his mind to hang it in the sitting room. Mrs. Beazley, of course, had outflanked him, and gifted it to the art gallery before he could so much as blink. It was neatly done, and impressively manipulative; she had acted far outside her bounds as housekeeper, given that she did not technically own the painting and so could not be permitted to gift it to anyone at all, but she had done the gifting in his name, and if he tried to take it back from the gallery he would look like the worst sort of bastard. The conversation would be difficult, and awkward, and might burn bridges at the gallery, and though Lucien had no immediate plans in that regard he did want to be able to enter that building one day without hanging his head in shame. He could have fired her for such an action, of course, but she knew that he would never do such a thing, would never cast out a woman who had lived in his father's house for so very long, who had cared for him in his final days, who had devoted so much of her own time and energies into looking after Lucien himself. She had caught him like a rabbit in a snare, but rather than anger Lucien had felt a strange sort of delight, when she delivered her news. Here was a woman, he'd thought then, who could make life interesting. Here was a woman of courage, a woman worth knowing.

A woman who currently stood in the doorway to his surgery, wrapped in an atrocious pink chenille dressing gown, with her hair in curlers and her face scrubbed free of makeup. For all the severity the hairnet and the dowdy dressing gown lent her she was lovely, still; _that's just the whiskey talking,_ he told himself.

"Mrs. Beazley," he said winsomely. "Can I help you?"

What he meant was _it's none of your concern what I'm doing up at this hour;_ she was, after all, his housekeeper and not his wife. The house was her domain, but Lucien was his own man, and he'd lost the one woman who'd ever owned a piece of him so long before that sometimes when he closed his eyes he had difficulty recalling her face. He blamed that on the whiskey, too.

"Actually, I was hoping we could talk," she said, frowning. "I meant to save it until breakfast, but seeing as you're up-"

"Of course, do come in," Lucien said, gesturing vaguely towards the chairs set on the other side of his desk. She had piqued his curiosity; what was she doing, wandering the house at nearly midnight, and what could she possibly have to say to him that she felt would be better expressed now, and not in the daylight? He knew so very little about her, and every new thing he learned only left him more confused.

At his invitation Jean crossed the surgery and folded herself neatly into one of the chairs, gathering her robe around herself to hide her pajamas from his view. Not that there was anything salacious to hide; Lucien was certain that underneath that robe she was covered from head to foot. No fancy silk and lace, for Jean Beazley; despite the elegance of her figure and the aching loveliness of her features there was a hardness in her that made Lucien suspect she'd as soon laugh in a man's face as let him kiss her. He could not imagine that there were any dreams of romance in her practical mind, for surely if there had been she would not have been so long a widow, so long alone.

"They've finished construction on that new hotel. The Royal Cross."

"Yes, I think I read something about that in the paper," Lucien said slowly, somewhat confused by her opening gambit. Had she really come to him in the middle of the night to discuss the completion of a recent construction project?

"By all accounts it's going to be a very fine place," Jean continued.

Yes, the grainy picture in the paper had presented an image of old world elegance, far beyond the means of most of the townsfolk of Ballarat but perhaps appealing to a more wealthy traveler - though why a wealthy traveler would want to pass through Ballarat Lucien had no idea.

"They've put put an advertisement for housekeepers, and I've applied."

Lucien could not have looked more stunned if she'd slapped him in the face with a dead fish; he felt his own mouth drop open, and yet could seem to do nothing to stop it. Jean had applied for a job somewhere else. _Jean_ , whom Lucien had previously believed to be attached to this house by some cosmic force that no man on earth could hope to break, Jean whom Lucien had inherited along with the practice and his father's books, a bequest for him to cherish and care for though he had so far shown little interest in doing so, was _leaving._ He had thought, before now, that not even an aerial attack would be sufficient to dislodge her; she was quite comfortable here, a queen in her castle, everyone catering to her whims and her demands. She had stayed here for so long that Lucien's head swam when he thought about it, and while his grouchy, grumpy, judgmental, classist, conservative father had not been sufficient to remove her from the place she called home it seemed that four months with Lucien had stretched her to her limit. It was a terribly depressing thought.

"I see," he said slowly.

"You and your father have been very kind to me," Jean rushed to explain. "But I've been living in someone else's home for a long time, now. I'm ready to have one of my own. If I work for the hotel I could keep regular hours, and I could afford to keep up my own house."

It was a reasonable enough explanation, designed to deflect blame from Lucien himself, but he saw through her at once. She had been perfectly content to live in someone else's home so long as his father was in residence, but Lucien had arrived, and four months later Jean was intent on packing her bags.

"I think it's wonderful," he said, lying. "I do understand if you would be more comfortable beneath your own roof, and I do approve of independence."

Jean's frown deepened, and Lucien realized his misstep too late. In trying to praise her for her courage he had instead condemned the life she'd led for more than a decade, and had come off sounding rather more condescending than he intended. Regardless of where she lived there was no woman on earth more independent that Jean Beazley, he knew, but he had just implied otherwise, and he had no idea how to correct his mistake without offending her further.

"They rang me today to arrange an interview," Jean said.

"Well, I'm sure once they've spoken to you they'll want to hire you on the spot."

Her frown relaxed, infinitesimally, and Lucien was absurdly proud of himself for having successfully complimented her.

"I don't want to put you out," Jean said. No doubt she was concerned that without her there to watch over him he would bring the entire house crumbling down around his ears; she may very well have been right in that regard.

"Not at all," he said, his forced joviality sounding dangerously close to slipping across the line into sarcasm. That had to be corrected. "I can find someone else to help out in the surgery. And I'll have you know I can find my way around a kitchen, in a pinch."

He'd meant the comment to sound lighthearted, but there was a pained expression on Jean's face; perhaps she'd misinterpreted his meaning. Perhaps she thought he was downplaying the importance of the work she did around the house; perhaps she thought that _he_ thought her services were not needed, that he would get on quite well without her. It could not have been farther from the truth; Lucien was quite certain that without Jean's gentle assistance his whole life might implode.

Still, though, she had made her choice. She wanted to leave, wanted a house of her own, wanted to be shot of him, and he would not try to change her mind. Living with him could not have been comfortable for any woman, and he would not inflict himself where he was not wanted.

"Well," Jean said, rising slowly to her feet. Reflexively Lucien did the same, offering her the respect he felt was owed her.

"I think it's wonderful, Jean. Good luck to you."

For a moment she looked at him appraisingly, and then she sighed.

"Thank you, Lucien," she said. "Good night."

"Good night, Jean," he answered, and then he watched her depart all in silence, thinking morose thoughts about how he seemed to drive everyone away, and how perhaps that was for the best. If he was doomed to be miserable for the rest of his life, he'd rather not drag anyone else down with him, especially not a woman as good and as beautiful as Jean.


	2. Chapter 2

The phone was ringing, but the house beyond the surgery was silent, and still. Mattie was out on her rounds, and Jean was nowhere to be found. The phone was ringing, but no one else was making a move to answer it; it appeared that particular task would fall to Lucien himself.

 _Best get used to that,_ he thought as he reached for the receiver. After their conversation last night, it was plain to Lucien that Jean's days in his house were numbered. And why shouldn't they be? The job at the Royal Cross offered her security, stability, a life of independence outside his sphere of chaotic influence; he could not blame her for taking this opportunity to jump ship, and he would not be able to blame the Royal Cross for snatching her up when the time came, for she was quite the most competent woman he'd ever met in his life, and any establishment would be lucky to employ her. He was a damn fool for running her off, and he knew it.

"Yes, Doctor Lucien Blake," he said, a bit more gruffly than he intended as he answered the phone.

There came a startled sort of silence, and then a woman with a reedy voice rushed to answer him.

"Good morning, Doctor Blake," she said. "This is Mrs. Adams, with Doctor King's surgery. Is Mrs. Beazley available?"

Truth be told Lucien had no idea where Mrs. Beazley was, just now, and he was not in the mood to go looking for her.

"I'm afraid she isn't," he said. "May I take a message?"

Given that she hadn't rushed to answer the phone, that he couldn't hear her puttering around in the house, he supposed Jean was probably busy at work in the garden, and he resolved not to bother her there. _Anyone can take a message,_ he thought, and then chided himself for his churlishness. Jean wasn't just anyone, and he could not imagine taking over her work half so competently as Jean herself had done.

"Oh, of course. I was just ringing to remind her about her appointment with Doctor King. This afternoon at two o'clock."

"Right," Lucien said faintly, more shocked than he would like to admit by this news. "I'll be sure to remind her. Good day, Mrs. Adams."

He promptly hung up the phone and then leaned back in his chair, thinking hard. Jean had an appointment with Doctor King? She hadn't mentioned anything of the sort to him, and as he sat there wracking his brain he realized he could not recall having ever had a conversation about Jean's medical care with her before. Had she always been a patient of Doctor King's? What had spurred her to make such an appointment? There had been no signs, as far as he was aware, that anything was amiss, that Jean was feeling anything less than hale and healthy, and she did not strike him as the sort of woman who would arrange to see a doctor just for a quick check up. She would have seen it as wasting both her time and his; Jean did not often put her own needs first, and he suspected she would be a most difficult patient, it ever came to that. Surely something must have compelled her to make this appointment, but if something were wrong, why had she chosen to go to Dennis bloody King about it, rather to Lucien himself? He was offended on two fronts, firstly by the thought that she might have been feeling unwell and yet kept it from him, and secondly by the notion that she would prefer to call someone else, rather than come to Lucien. Perhaps she had long been a patient of Doctor King's; perhaps she did not think Lucien capable.

 _Right,_ he thought. _We'll see about that._

And so, without sparing a thought for the autopsy notes he was reviewing, Lucien rose from his chair, and went in search of Jean. He had a message to deliver, after all, and if he got much needed answers in the process, so much the better.

His earlier suppositions were correct; Jean was kneeling in the garden, plucking the weeds out from between her flowers with a farmer's clear determination. She was dressed, as ever, in a tight knee length skirt and a neat blouse, wearing pumps despite the manual labor she had undertaken, a yellow smock tied over her clothes to keep the dirt off her. She didn't much approve of _mess_ , did Jean, and she always looked perfect. Anyone else, undertaking such work, would surely be sweaty and covered in dirt and debris, but not Jean; she was as pristine as if she had only just stepped out of the kitchen, and lovely, as ever.

"Jean!" Lucien called as he strode across the grass. How many years had she spent tending this garden, and all the delicate blooms in the sunroom? Would she miss them when she was gone, or would she relish the opportunity to start afresh, in her own little cottage, on her own terms? Without her gentle care Lucien had no doubt that the garden and all the blessed foliage in the sunroom would wilt and wither and ruin; _I shall have to hire a groundskeeper, as well,_ he thought morosely. A housekeeper, and a receptionist, and a gardener; it would take three people to complete all the tasks Jean undertook in a day. _Perhaps I should have offer her a pay rise,_ he thought.

"Good morning, Doctor Blake," she said, rising smoothly to her feet in one fluid motion. _How does she do that?_ He wondered. How did she make every task, no matter how menial, seem graceful and easy? And why was he suddenly so preoccupied with her? The answer, he knew, lay in her impending departure; it was only the threat of losing something precious that made one understand its true value.

"Just had a call for you," he said, gesturing vaguely over his shoulder towards the house. "Mrs. Adams wanted to remind you about your appointment with Doctor King. This afternoon at two o'clock."

He had remembered it word for word, and if he hadn't felt so out of sorts about the whole thing he might have been rather proud of himself for that.

Jean frowned. "Yes," she said. "I hadn't forgotten. But thank you."

With the message delivered it would appear that Jean felt there was nothing left to say, and she turned back to her flowers at once. Lucien, however, was just getting started.

"If there's something troubling you, Jean," he said slowly, "you know I would be happy to help. I _am_ a doctor."

Jean whirled back around, clutching her trowel in her gloved hands. Of course she wore gloves to work in the garden, he thought; Mrs. Beazley had lovely hands, delicate and soft, and her polish was never chipped, her nails never broken. Mrs. Beazley was the sort of woman who took care of things; Lucien was beginning to suspect his only real talent lay in destruction. _What a pair we make, eh?_

"Well, yes," she said, somewhat uncomfortably. "But you aren't _my_ doctor."

That was hardly a reassuring pronouncement; she seemed shocked by the very idea. And why should she be? Surely one of the perks of working for a doctor was access to round the clock care whenever it was needed. Wasn't it?

"I should hope you know, Jean, that I would never charge you for care. Surely my father looked after you?"

He would not charge her, not now while she lived beneath his roof, and not later, after she left him; Jean was a part of the family, as it were, and she always would be, and he wanted, very much, to see that she was well taken care of. And though it had not occurred to him before he spoke he had realized as he looked at her that surely she must have needed medical attention at some point in her life, and surely his father must have provided it; as strained as Lucien's relationship with his father was he could not imagine Thomas Blake turning her away, or turning a blind eye to her troubles.

Perhaps it was a trick of the sunlight slanting through the trees, but in that moment Lucien could have sworn that Jean blushed.

"Well, no, actually," she said. "I was never really ill, while he was here. Just the odd cold here and there, and I know how to handle that. And it's very kind of you to offer, Doctor Blake, but...well. Things stand a certain way between you and I, and there are things I would rather discuss with...someone else."

She _was_ blushing! To the roots of her hair, he would have sworn to it. Too late he realized that she was right; they lived beneath the same roof, a widow and a widower of an age with one another, neither of them too old to disregard propriety entirely. They took their meals together, and Lucien paid her himself each week, and the town whispered about them; even Lucien had heard the rumors, and he was hardly one for gossip. They were rather closer than a man and his employee ought to be already, and if he was to be her doctor he would have to... _examine_ her. Would have to touch her in ways he had never before dreamed of doing. Oh, he had been long enough in this business to trust his own professionalism, would never dream of taking advantage of Jean in a private moment, but what if she didn't trust _him?_ What if she detested the very thought of his hands upon her skin, however innocent the touch? And, well...Jean was of a certain age. Suppose her malady was of a particularly feminine sort; they both might well die of mortification, if they were forced to discuss her condition in frank terms in the surgery and then sit across from one another at the dinner table. Perhaps she had been right to call Dennis King, after all.

"Right," Lucien said, feeling suddenly, incredibly awkward.

"It's not that I don't think you're a good doctor," Jean rushed to explain herself. "I know that you are, and this town is lucky to have you. It's just, in this instance, for me personally…"

"Of course," Lucien said, raising his hands in a gesture of defeat. "I understand completely, Jean. It's just...well. If something is the matter, you will tell me, won't you?"

He hated to think that there was anything she was not comfortable sharing with him, given their proximity to one another, but then again he understood it, in a way. Why should she wish to confess anything personal to him at all, considering that from the moment he arrived in this house he had brought her nothing but chaos and grief? Her life must have been much simpler, before, and Lucien knew that he was a walking mass of complications, too much for even the most understanding woman to endure. And Jean was not the most understanding of women; she had made her displeasure clear from the very first, when he couldn't be bothered to come home in time for dinner, when he kept the whole house awake banging on the piano and drinking himself into a stupor, when he got too wrapped up in one of Matthew's cases and forgot his own appointments. They approached life from such wildly different perspectives, he and Jean, that really he thought it was a wonder it had taken her this long to make good her escape.

"I will," she said, softly, and all his grim thoughts were turned into confusion in a moment, for he had expected her to rebuff him, not to agree. That woman baffled him at every turn, and he was beginning to suspect he'd never really understand her. He certainly never would have the chance once she left him.

"Right," he said; he had nothing more enlightening to add. He'd asked his questions, and found his answers, and the time had come for him to retreat. "Lots to be getting on with."

"Me, too," she said, and so Jean turned back to her flowers, and Lucien turned back to the house, his thoughts a whirl of confusion.


	3. Chapter 3

After spending the afternoon in the morgue, staring at the entrails of an unfortunate soul who had mysteriously dropped dead on the pavement in front of the florists' the day before, the sights and smells and sounds of home were deeply welcoming to Lucien. Funny, that; when he'd first returned to this house he had hated every inch of that house and thought longingly of leaving it, but now this house was _home._ It was where he belonged, where he wanted to go at the end of a long day, familiar and comforting, and no longer alien and alienating.

They were in the kitchen, those two lovely ladies whose presence had so contributed to Lucien's changing attitudes towards his family home, and he followed the sound of their soft voices, the sound of tea cups gently clinking against the saucers, thinking kind thoughts about the blessing women could bestow upon a household. It was nearly dinner time; Lucien and Jean had come to an agreement, as regarded dinner, and it was now served promptly every evening at 6:00, and Lucien made his way to the table on time more often than not. It was hard to stay away from the enticement of Jean's wonderful cooking; she was a marvel in the kitchen.

 _Better than I'll ever be,_ Lucien thought. He could manage a bit of eggs and bacon, toast and tea, but that was the full extent of his cooking ability. When Jean took her leave of him he would need to find someone else to take her place, to make sure that he and Mattie were fed. But would anyone else's cooking ever be as fine as Jean's? Though she would on occasion present him with some newfangled dish he'd never heard of before, for the most part Jean preferred a more traditionalist approach to their meals. There was something homey about the familiar dishes she whipped up with apparently no effort whatsoever, something terribly comforting about her neat rows of homemade jams, the perfectly crimped crusts of her pies. Everything she touched was neat, and lovely, and Lucien was beginning to suspect no one else could compare to her in the realm of the domestic arts.

 _I shall have to adjust my expectations,_ he thought grimly.

As he stepped around the corner and through the doorway he started to call out _something smells good,_ but he had only just begun to speak when he barreled straight into Jean.

"Oh!" she cried as they collided, as Lucien let out a startled little grunt. He hadn't seen her coming, and then the next thing he knew she was practically in his arms. Jean was slight and their impact was not sufficient to throw Lucien off balance, but she reacted rather as if she'd run into a brick wall, and his hands reached for her hips reflexively as he tried to help her keep her balance. She was suddenly, unbearably close, beautiful and bright-eyed, her blue apron highlighting the neat tuck of her waist, her body delicate beneath his hands; she smelled like the garden, he thought, in the best possible way, but he had no sooner touched her than she wrenched herself out of his grip, tugging at her apron as if it had offended her and tossing her head in a bid to shake her soft curls out of her face.

"Do watch where you're going, Doctor Blake," she told him, and her tone carried with it such venom that he actually took a step back from her, perturbed by the shift in her demeanor. When last they spoke they had been perfectly pleasant to one another, kind, even, and he had only stepped into the kitchen to compliment her. He had been wholly unprepared to face her ire, and he found himself at a loss as to how to fix things between them.

"I am sorry, Jean," he told her most contritely, but he wasn't certain she even heard him, for she departed in a huff, marching as fast and forcefully as her legs would carry her out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Lucien spun on his heel, watched her go with his thoughts churning, wondering how on earth he had managed to offend her so completely.

"It isn't personal," Mattie said softly, and it was then that Lucien recalled her presence in the kitchen. He spun back around and found her sitting at the table, still wearing her uniform and sipping a cup of tea.

"Are you quite certain?" Lucien asked, a bit ruefully. He had insulted or otherwise offended Mrs. Beazley so very many times over the course of their short acquaintance that he found it hard to imagine her displeasure had been anything _but_ personal; he was certain he must have done something wrong, and though he did not yet know what that something was, he was equally certain Jean would reveal the nature of his transgression to him in time.

"Don't take this the wrong way," Mattie said, smiling knowingly at him, "but you are a man, and a doctor, and Jean is not kindly disposed towards either of those groups just now."

"I suppose I have Dennis King to thank for that, eh?" Lucien said. He spied the kettle sitting beside the stove and made his way towards it, thinking he could do with a cuppa himself.

"You'd have to ask her," Mattie said primly.

"Of course."

Mattie was the district nurse, and so understood the need for discretion when it came to medical matters, but more than that she was Jean's friend, and they presented a united front, the pair of them, the two ladies of the house ensuring that their landlord never had a chance to get too full of himself. She knew better than to spill out Jean's secrets, and Lucien knew better than to ask her to.

Jean's trip to the doctor must have upset her, though he could not imagine how. Lucien knew very little about Dennis King, just that he was the only other GP in town, and that a good number of Thomas Blake's patients had left the Blake surgery for Doctor King's when Lucien came to town. In truth he could not recall having ever met the man, though he supposed King was probably a member of the Colonists'. They'd probably sat drinking in the same room, and never even knew it.

What could Doctor King had said to leave Jean in such a foul mood? And just what the bloody hell was wrong with her, any way? Though he had scoured through all his memories Lucien could not recall a single sign that Jean was unwell, and yet she'd felt the need to go and seek this man out, and now his diagnosis appeared to have distressed her a great deal. That didn't bode well, to Lucien's mind.

"Perhaps I should go and talk to her," Lucien mused as he filled his own teacup.

"I wouldn't," Mattie said sternly. "She's just feeling a bit out of sorts right now. She'll come round."

Mattie left the rest of her thoughts unspoken, but Lucien heard them just the same; _and you sticking your nose in where it doesn't belong will only make it worse._

"She's forgotten her tea," Lucien said, pointing to Jean's empty cup where it sat abandoned on the table.

"Lucien-"

Mattie started to warn him, but he was already moving; Lucien flashed her a bright grin, and then scooped up Jean's teacup.

"Don't-"

"Oh, it'll be fine," he told her, and before she could stop him he swept away from her, carrying his tea and Jean's both up the stairs.

It was, he knew, probably the most foolish thing he could have done, but he was eaten alive with curiosity, and determined to hear the truth from Jean herself. It wasn't as if he could make matters worse; Jean was already determined to leave him. At least this way he might have a chance to help her, if only she would speak to him, give him the opportunity to evaluate her symptoms for himself. It might be that Lucien could come up with an answer she found more satisfactory than Doctor King's; he wanted that, very much, though he was loath to examine his desire to please his beautiful, prickly housekeeper at any length for fear of what he might find lurking within his own heart.

He paused for a moment outside her bedroom door, trying to juggle both teacups in a bid to free his hand so that he could knock, but before he could get himself sorted the door swung open and he very nearly collided with Jean for a second time. The color was high in her cheeks and her eyes were flashing at him, half in anger and half in confusion, and he found himself tongue tied at the very sight of her, suddenly feeling as if he had made a grave miscalculation.

"Lucien?"

Somehow Jean managed to make the very sound of his name into an accusation.

"I've brought your tea," he said somewhat lamely, holding her cup up as proof.

For a moment she looked rather as if she wanted to shout at him, but then she took a deep breath, and as she exhaled her whole body seemed to relax, all the fight leaving her at once.

"Thank you," she said, addressing him more softly than she had done so far this evening. She reached for her teacup and he handed it over, but as they stood there, each clutching their teacups and trying to avoid one another's gaze, he realized that he hadn't thought this through as well as he might have done. It would hardly be proper to request entrance into her private bedroom, but he did so very much want to speak with her, to listen to her troubles and help her find her way through. It wasn't a conversation they should have in the corridor, though, and he didn't quite know how to move things along.

Jean did, though. Jean always knew best.

"Come in, then," she said, taking a step back, and Lucien accepted her invitation at once, and stepped into her room for the very first time.

The room had changed a great deal from Lucien's childhood memories. The walls had once been stark white, the furnishings utilitarian. Thomas Blake had not taken on boarders, in Lucien's youth, and all the upstairs room had sat empty, save for the one Lucien had once occupied as a child. Those empty rooms had once seemed like tombs to him, though he was an adult before he realized why. The Blake house had boasted three empty bedrooms, and perhaps it had once been Thomas and Genevieve's dream to fill them all with children. Those dreams had never come to be; they only had Lucien, and he had suspected all his life that he had never been quite enough for them.

Now, however, the walls were painted a warm shade of pink - _rose_ , perhaps, a painter might have called it - and two of them were covered in a cream wallpaper with floral designs in a matching pink hue. There was a dressing table with a mirror, several scarves draped across it, the surface cluttered by pots of creams and makeup and an old fashioned wooden jewelry box. The coverlet on the bed was white and floral-patterned, too, little vases of fresh-cut flowers on the sidetables, gauzy white curtains on the windows. Everything about this room was warm, and soft, and overwhelmingly feminine, and Lucien felt himself an intruder there. Nonetheless he had been invited, and when Jean gestured towards the bench in front of the dresser he sat himself down there at once, taking a sip of his tea while Jean perched neatly on the end of her bed.

"Tell me what this is all about, Jean," he said quietly, his voice hushed by the sanctity of her private domain. He was trying very hard to be both respectful and concerned, to let her know that he was someone she could talk to; Jean seemed to know everyone in town, all their secrets and all the many ways they were connected to one another, and no one had ever spoken a bad word about her in his hearing, but it seemed to him that she had very few friends. True friends, people to whom she could unburden herself without fear of judgement. Lucien wanted, very much, to be a friend to her, even now, when she was hellbent on leaving him.

Jean blushed and looked away, and he watched her, the turn of her head, the elegant lines of her neck, the delicate sweep of her jaw, and thought, not for the first time, how lovely she was.

"Would you say…" she started to speak, trailed off. Cleared her throat, straightened her shoulders, took another sip of tea, and then tried again. "Would you say that forty-five is a bit young for... _the change?"_

Those last two words she uttered quietly, distastefully, and Lucien had to smother a smile. She was always so proper, was Jean, always so determined to avoid unpleasantness. The hesitancy with which she voiced those words - which were themselves an innuendo, a delicate way of approaching a most indelicate subject - was not uncommon among the ladies who visited his surgery, and who all seemed so distrustful of discussing something so personal with a man.

"It's not unheard of," he said slowly. So that was it, then, he thought, the root of Jean's distress. She wasn't ill, or suffering from some terrible pain, wasn't about to fall victim to some fatal malady; it was only the inevitable marching of time that had left her so distraught. The news came as something of a relief to him.

Jean huffed, and Lucien rushed to explain himself, not wanting to upset her further.

"There is no set age, Jean," he said. "It really does vary from woman to woman. It might be helpful to know what age your mother experienced...the change, as ordinarily daughters will go through it around the same time as their mothers. It tends to be fairly uniform, among family members."

That, of course, led Lucien to wondering about Jean's family. Where were her parents, if they still lived? What were they like? Did she have any siblings? He supposed she must have had at least one, given that Danny called her _Auntie Jean,_ but then again perhaps she was just good friends with his mum, and not his literal aunt - _but if they're such good friends,_ he thought, _why have I never seen her? Why does Jean never talk about her?_ And those boys of hers, he knew she loved them fiercely, but she spoke of them infrequently, and always with a sorrowful look in her eye, and he had never quite understood the reason why should she should be reticent where they were concerned. There was so much he did not know about her, might not ever have the chance to know about her, and he lamented for it now.

As he asked his question Jean had sighed, and was now staring moodily down at her tea.

"My mother never talked about it," she confessed, "and it's too late to ask her now."

 _Ah._ So Jean's mother was dead, then. Gone before she could impart any final wisdom to her daughter, gone too soon to guide her through this milestone of her life. Gone and left her with no one but Lucien to look to for assistance, and he lamented for that, too; Jean deserved better, he thought. A happy family, a warm home, a life as neat and refined as the one she clearly longed for, the one he had blown to pieces with his reckless presence.

"It will be all right, Jean," he said. "It's only natural."

Her eyes flashed up at him, and he could almost hear her admonishment, could almost hear her saying _and what would you know about it, Doctor Blake?_ In truth, the answer was very little. Lucien's mother had died when he was small, and he had no sisters or close female relatives. Mere days after his mother's death Thomas had shipped young Lucien off to an all-boys boarding school. After that came Edinburgh, and while there had been a few women among his classmates they had mostly stuck to themselves. As a doctor Lucien had cut his teeth on male surgical before joining the army; he'd enjoyed a few precious years of familial bliss with his beloved Mei Lin and Li, but then horror had come for him and taken his girls away, and he'd spent the next three years imprisoned with thousands of other men, and not a woman in sight. After that; well, there had been the occasional woman, but his heart had never been in it, and it never lasted long, each entanglement doomed from the start while Lucien did not know if his wife was still living. In truth, Lucien had very little experience at all when it came to the female condition, but he was a doctor, and well-studied, and what he lacked in hands-on experience he liked to think he could make up for, in this particular instance, with knowledge gained from books.

"I know it perhaps isn't what you wanted to hear," he said, "but I for one am grateful that you aren't actually ill."

 _I shouldn't have said that,_ he thought, but it was too late to take the words back, and one of Jean's eyebrows had already lifted in surprise. It was perhaps the closest he had ever come to any sort of declaration of friendly concern or affection for her, and he hadn't intended to burden her with his own feelings when her mind was already decided against staying on with him. It was the truth, however; he had been worried from the moment the telephone rang that morning that some dreadful calamity had come calling for Jean, and he could have laughed aloud, so great was his relief to learn that it was only menopause.

"Well," she said, a trifle awkward now, as if she had no idea how to respond to such kindness coming from him. "Thank you, Lucien." From where he was sitting he rather thought he hadn't done much of anything at all, but it appeared as if Jean felt somewhat reassured by their conversation, and he counted that as a blessing. "I'd best go and see about dinner."

She rose to her feet and so Lucien did the same, stepped back and let her pass before following her out of the room and along the corridor, down the stairs and to the kitchen. His steps were lighter now than they had been on his journey up to see her; Jean was all right, and so long as Jean was all right, he knew that everything else would be, too.


	4. Chapter 4

The sound of women's laughter floated out from the kitchen and reached Lucien where he stood in the sitting room, fiddling with the wireless, whiskey glass close to hand. It was a gentle sound, a merry sound, and it soothed him; no doubt the day had been a troubling one for Jean, confronted as she had been so personally by the cruel marching hand of time, and so he had made himself scarce, hoping that Mattie's sweet company would soothe Jean's wounded pride. It seemed to Lucien that he had been right in that regard, and he was grateful for it, grateful that Jean was well, that Mattie was here, that they were all of them together and happy, for however brief a time.

The news of Jean's predicament had surprised him, though he supposed it ought not have done. He had not known, before tonight, just how old she was, but he did know that she must not be too much younger than Lucien was himself; her boys, Christopher and Jack, were around the same age as Lucien's Li, or the age she would be if she was still living. Since Lucien had only just celebrated his forty-ninth birthday, and Jean was of an age with him, _the change_ was an inevitability, really, a milestone she must have known was fast approaching, one that should have caught neither she nor Lucien surprise. And yet, somehow, they had both been shocked; Lucien could not speak for Jean, but he knew that somewhere deep within his heart he had considered Jean to be timeless, in her own way, ageless but always, _always_ younger than he, lovely and lithe and full of life. It was cruel, he thought, the way time had inserted itself into her life, and crueler still the way people talked about it, as if the moment a woman's body... _changed_ she was no longer what she had been, before. Jean was no different to him this evening than she would be tomorrow or than she had been the day before, but the rules of society would mark her, now. As if she were past her prime, and Jean not yet fifty! It was cruel, he thought, that she should endure such treatment, when men such as himself were said to only get better with age. He did not think that was true of himself, but he was certain it was true of Jean.

There was a certain melancholy to his thoughts, as at last the crackling of the wireless resolved itself into a gentle melody; he was thinking of Jean, and all the life she'd yet to live, and all the life she'd lived already, that life he knew nothing about. Her world had once revolved around husband and babies and a house of her own, but she had none of those things now. Did she feel weary, cast aside? Was she full of anger, determined that she still had a mark to make upon the world? He wanted to ask her, wanted to speak frankly to her of her feelings - and confess to her that time had not been kind to him, either, that his left knee pained him in bad weather, that his back was not what it once had been - but there was no room in their relationship for such revelations, particularly not now, now that she was leaving.

Thinking of her imminent departure made him wonder whether would Mattie leave him as well. So far Jean's presence in the house had protected the girl's reputation, but would the situation grow untenable, when everyone in town knew that the district nurse lived alone with a notorious bachelor? Such talk would be ludicrous; Lucien thought of Mattie as a daughter, and it was not Mattie his eyes sought out across the room. But still, they both had their reputations to worry about, given their standing in the town. If Jean left, and Mattie left, what then would Lucien have to hold on to? _Nothing at all,_ he thought bleakly. He'd had a daughter, once, a wife, once, a home full of the laughter of women, but he'd lost the first one, and now stood poised to lose the second, and how cruel it was, he thought, that nothing good ever seemed to stay with him long. He'd never had the chance to grow old with Mei Lin; he was thirty-two years old the last time he saw her face, and she only twenty-eight. Twenty-eight, barely older than Mattie was now, with their child on her hip and a look of wretched determination in her eyes, delicate and lovely and walking away from him. He tried to imagine it, for a moment, what Mei Lin might look like now, how the time might have changed her, but a sob lodged itself in the back of his throat and he gave his head a shake as if that alone would be sufficient to dislodge his grief. Much as Jean might have resented her current circumstances, at least she had lived long enough to see it, while Mei Lin -

"Lucien!"

A resounding crash from the kitchen scattered his memories like marbles upon a tile floor and Mattie let forth an ear-splitting scream of his name, and in the next breath Lucien was moving, racing towards the sound of that terrible cry. It would be wrong to say he had never heard anything like it; he had heard shrieks of fear and pain and horror before, and the memory of them, the knowing of them, had never left him. That something terrible enough to have Mattie crying out like that could have happened in his own home was unthinkable, but beneath it all, beneath his own fear, beneath the thin veneer of civility he'd drawn over himself, beneath the comfortable life Ballarat had shrouded him in like a cloak, Lucien remained, at heart, a soldier, and a surgeon. Even now, in this time and place so different from the chaos and calamity he had once known, the old calm asserted itself, silenced his fear and stilled the shaking of his hands. He had worked triage on battlefields and organized an infirmary in a prisoner of war camp and done surgery on his best friend in the entire with nothing to light his way but a flickering candle; whatever had happened, he could handle it with cool efficiency now, and fall to pieces later.

When he entered the kitchen he took in the entire scene at a glance; Jean, lying on her back on the floor, her eyes closed, the shattered remains of a dinner plate close by her right hand, Mattie kneeling by her head with tears in her eyes.

"Don't touch her," Lucien barked, marching towards them with sharp, quick steps. Mattie was a nurse, and a good one, but she was also young, and inexperienced, and unused to seeing friends in harm's way. For now, for this moment, Jean had to be Lucien's primary concern, and he could worry about soothing Mattie's fears later.

"What happened?" he demanded as he knelt beside them, pressing his fingertips against Jean's neck in search of a pulse. Later he would recall the way her smart fell above her knee, and how pale her skin looked beneath her stockings, and how much she would have hated to think he'd seen her so vulnerable.

"We were talking," Mattie gasped through her tears. "I thought she looked pale but she seemed fine, and then her eyes went sort of glassy, and I tried to catch her…"

Later Lucien's heart would break, to think that Mattie might blame herself for not reacting quickly enough, but there was no time for sympathy in the moment. He could feel Jean's pulse beneath his fingertips, thready and weak, could see her eyelashes fluttering as though she were trying to rouse herself; a good sign, he thought.

"Lucien, I think she hit her head," Mattie told him, her voice a trembling, reedy whisper.

Grimly Lucien knelt over Jean, reached for her with his hands, gently feeling out the lines of her neck, gingerly reaching to test the back of her head in search of injuries. There might have been a time when he dreamed of touching her, might have been moments when he wondered how she might react to the touch of his fingertips against the elegant line of her neck, but he had never imagined anything like this; this was calculated, professional, utterly devoid of beauty or romance. Jean could not be _Jean_ to him, in that moment, could not be the lovely woman who shared his house, whose impending departure had set his mind to reeling with thoughts of her. Just now, Jean could only be his patient.

"I don't think anything's broken," he said, expanding his exploration to her arms, her elbows. "We need to get her to hospital."

There were a variety of reasons an otherwise healthy woman might collapse, but Lucien couldn't see how any of them might apply in Jean's case. She'd had a healthy appetite at dinner, and despite her lean frame was not the sort of woman to go missing meals. He didn't suspect hypoglycemia, then, but he had no reason to suspect she suffered from hypotension, either. If she did, he imagined she would have visited Doctor King far more often for treatment, would have suffered dizziness or fainting spells more regularly. No, something had _happened,_ but he didn't have the first idea what.

"I'll ring for the ambulance," Mattie said, scrambling to her feet.

"No," Lucien answered sharply. "It'll take too long. Go and fetch the car keys, Mattie."

Her eyes went wide but she did not protest, only raced off towards the foyer where Lucien left the keys to his father's old Holden in a bowl on the entry table. It was Jean who'd gotten him in that particular habit; she had disapproved of his somewhat lackadaisical approach to the disposition of his belongings, and he did try to please her where he could.

"I'm so sorry about this, Jean," he whispered. He wasn't entirely sure she could hear him, but he felt an apology was warranted just the same, given what he was about to do. Gingerly he slipped one arm beneath her back, caught the other behind her knees, and then lifted her bodily from the floor, somewhat taken aback by how light she seemed in his arms. Surely a woman with a soul as big as Jean's should have weighed more, but she flopped in his arms like a ragdoll, and his steps did not falter as he carried her out from the kitchen. He did his best to brace her head with his forearm, and focused on his breathing, on remaining as steady as he could, and not jostling her overmuch.

Mattie was waiting for him by the door, and she swung it wide as he approached, held it open as he marched through it and then raced past him to open the car door for him. _Christ,_ but Lucien was grateful for that girl, grateful that she didn't ask too many questions, that she simply did what needed doing without need of further direction from him. Jean was breathing, and her heart was still beating, but she would not open her eyes, and though there was no blood or apparent injury to her head Lucien still wanted her to be looked over, properly. Perhaps carrying her like this was not the best choice he could have made, but his army training was overriding his medical studies, at present; _get her to safety, quick as you can,_ that was the instinct that drove him. He could have her at the hospital in a matter of minutes, and that was precisely what he meant to do.

"Mattie, could you-" he started to call out as he approached the car, but she understood him at once, and scrambled into the backseat of the car. As soon as she was situated Lucien bowed and laid Jean down there, her head pillowed on Mattie's lap. Carefully he tucked her feet inside the car, and allowed himself one single second to try and catch his breath. She looked so... _small_ , so fragile, and his heart nearly shattered at the sight of her stretched out like that, pliant and unmoving, not chiding him for touching her or leaving a mess in the kitchen, just eerily, terribly still. A lock of her dark hair spilled messily across her forehead and he had to fight back the sudden urge to lean across and tuck it back for her; Jean always tried so hard to keep her appearance neat, and he knew she wouldn't want anyone to see her looking anything less than perfect.

"Keep an eye on her pulse for me," he said to Mattie, and then he closed the door, and raced around the car towards his own seat, desperate to get Jean to the hospital, to help, as quickly as he could.


	5. Chapter 5

Patience had never been Lucien's strong suit, particularly not in moments like this one, moments when the people nearest and dearest to him were in harm's way, and there was nothing he could do to help them. Doctor Peters and several of the nurses had wheeled Jean into an examination room and promptly tossed him out of it; _are you her personal physician, Doctor Blake?_ Peters had asked him, and Lucien, aghast, had been forced to admit, _no, no, I'm -_ but of course good Doctor Peters hadn't waited for him to finish his sentence before throwing him out. Lucien was not her primary physician, she was not in need of emergency surgery, and by hospital standards he would not be allowed to treat her. There was nothing for him to do then but linger in the corridor with Mattie, waiting.

The waiting was about to drive him mad, and so he paced, restless, anxious, while Mattie sat still on one of the hard wooden benches, wringing her hands together in her lap. The minutes passed slowly, in silence; Lucien's mind was working overtime, turning over every piece of evidence, however minute, trying to come up with some explanation for Jean's collapse. Perhaps it was nothing serious; perhaps she was dehydrated, or perhaps hormonal fluctuations had wrought havoc with her blood pressure, or perhaps he'd been wrong and she hadn't been eating like she should and it was only low blood sugar that sent her falling to the floor. Perhaps it was something worse; perhaps it had been a stroke, or arrhythmia, or-

"I can't help thinking this all my fault," Mattie confessed into the silence between them.

Dismayed by the wretched tone of that dear girl's voice Lucien rushed to her side at once, sat down there and took both of her hands in his own in a comforting sort of way.

"No, Mattie," he said. "No. There was no way you could have anticipated this."

_If I didn't see it, how could she?_

"But I thought she looked pale, I should have told her to sit down, I should have-"

The door to the examination room swung open while Mattie was speaking, and she and Lucien both vaulted to their feet at once, watching as the nurses and Doctor Peters came filing out.

"Is she all right?" Lucien asked the doctor at once, cornering the poor man in the doorway and trying to peer over his shoulder, hoping for a glimpse of Jean. Unfortunately for Lucien, however, Peters pushed him bodily away, and closed the door smoothly.

"As you're not family, and you're not her physician, you know I can't disclose any details to you, Blake," Peters said sternly.

Not family, and not her physician, Lucien was only her employer, and even that he would not be for very long. What ties would he have left to her, once she'd taken on a job elsewhere? Would he ever even see her again? Ballarat was a small town, but it wasn't _that_ small, and they hardly ran in the same social circles, and who would look after Jean, when Lucien wasn't there to do it himself?

"As it stands, however, there's not much to tell. Mrs. Beazley is awake and alert. It's a bit late for visiting hours, but under the circumstances I'll allow you and Nurse O'Brien a few minutes with her before you head off home. We've given her some saline, and she perked right up. We've no indication that there's anything wrong with her."

"But surely you'll want to take her for x-rays?" Lucien asked, shocked by the man's rather cavalier attitude, given the situation. "She might have hit her head-"

"As I said, she's awake and alert. And in for an unpleasant night. We've no reason to suspect any damage to her brain but we'll be monitoring her overnight in case of concussion. There's no need for x-rays at this time."

"But she collapsed!" Lucien protested. Why weren't they running more tests? Why did Peters and the nurses who'd assisted him seem so wholly unbothered by the events that had shaken Lucien to his very core? Even setting aside his personal connection to her, Jean was a _patient_ , and if it were up to Lucien he would have done everything possible to treat her, would not have simply given her saline and called it _good enough._

"Women faint, Doctor Blake," Peters said with a shrug. "It happens. Now, the matron will be along in a few minutes to send you off home. If you'd like to speak with Mrs. Beazley, now's your chance."

And with that Peters departed, leaving Lucien utterly flabbergasted in his wake.

"You go on in, Mattie," he said to the girl. "There's a phone call I want to make."

She shot him a strange look, but she did not try to change his mind, only sighed and slipped into the room while Lucien marched off down the corridor, all but trembling with barely controlled fury. _Women faint._ As if that was a sufficient explanation for what had happened tonight! Jean wasn't some Regency novella heroine, passing out at the first sign of unpleasantness; she was strong, and brave, and healthy, and she had collapsed in her own kitchen for no reason he could see. Lucien could not rest until he knew for certain _why,_ even if no one else seemed to care.

And so he marched to the nurses' station, walked right behind the desk, and rifled through the list of local physicians and hospital numbers until he found the number for Dennis King. He would have his answers.

King picked up on the second ring, and sounded distinctly put out as he said, "yes, Doctor King."

"Doctor King, it's Lucien Blake. I'm sorry to call so late."

It was in fact just after 8:00, not terribly late, to Lucien's mind, but the citizens of Ballarat were a provincial sort, and no doubt Dennis King would have been on his way to bed at this time of the evening.

"Doctor Blake," King said, sounding quite surprised, and not at all in a good way. "I'm afraid now is not a good time, can't this wait until morning?"

"No, I'm afraid it can't," Lucien said through clenched teeth. He could not recall having ever encountered quite so much resistance to the treating of a patient, and if Dennis bloody King had been standing in front of him he might well have decked the man. "I'm calling about Jean. Mrs. Beazley."

"Ah. Displeased with her diagnosis, was she? I'm surprised she went looking for a second opinion. Her pride won't undo the work of time." This was the very first time Lucien had ever spoken to Dennis King, and so he had no previous understanding of the man or his character. The way Doctor King spoke about Jean, however, settle Lucien's opinion on the man at once; his dismissive attitude place him firmly in Lucien's bad books.

"Doctor King, Mrs. Beazley is my housekeeper, and she collapsed in our kitchen this evening. I'm at the hospital with her now."

"Oh, goodness me." The man did manage to sound somewhat contrite, but that did little to soothe Lucien's displeasure. "I do hope she's all right."

"I'm wondering if you might pop round and speak with the doctors here. As her physician, you may have some information that might help them. As far as they can see nothing is wrong with her, and your notes might be of some use to them."

"Right," Doctor King said slowly. "As it happens I'm afraid I won't be of much use at all, Doctor Blake. Mrs. Beazley came to me complaining of back and abdominal pain, and abnormal menstrual cycles. Given her age, it's plain to see those are only symptoms of the onset of menopause. It certainly doesn't explain-"

"Those could also be symptoms of ovarian cysts, or even cancer, you absolute buffoon!" Lucien could not control his temper in the face of such stunning disregard for a patient's welfare - for _Jean's_ welfare.

"Doctor Blake!" A sharp voice called out behind him; Lucien spun on his heel, and found himself face to face with the matron, wearing a thunderous expression, clearly outraged by the liberty he had taken in using the nurses' phone for himself, not to mention shouting in the middle of the hospital.

"What are you doing?" she demanded. On the other end of the phone Dennis King was prattling on, but Lucien couldn't be bothered to deal with the man now; he slammed the phone down smartly, and marched off towards Jean's room with the matron hot on his heels and his heart pounding fiercely in his chest. Back pain, abdominal pain, irregular bleeding, and now a fainting spell; it seemed to him that something was very wrong with Jean indeed, but everyone who could have helped her had so far dismissed her complaints, chalked it up to the inevitable discomfort of womanhood and washed their hands of the whole business, content to let it go at that. Lucien would not, could not do the same; Jean deserved better. Jean deserved the very best care she could get, and he was hellbent on giving it to her.

As they progressed through the hospital the matron tried valiantly to bring him to heel, but Lucien was several steps ahead of her, and under a full head of steam. He paid no attention when she called out to Doctor Peters, barely even noticed when the man came rushing towards him, only barreled on, straight through the door and into the room where Jean lay stretched out on a bed, Mattie sitting in the chair beside her, both of them baffled by his sudden appearance.

"Lucien?" Jean called out as he burst through the door. "Is everything all right?"

"I say, Blake, just what are you playing at?" Peters demanded as he came crashing into the room behind Lucien, catching hold of him and trying to pull him back. "I think it's time you left."

"Jean," Lucien said, ignoring Peters's attempts to drag him from the room and focusing instead on the only person who mattered. "I think there is something very seriously wrong with you and I think it's got nothing at all to do with menopause. If you will consent, I would like to take over your treatment."

Silence fell, in the wake of his grave pronouncement. Doctor Peters still held Lucien by the arm, and the matron had caught hold of his jacket, but they stilled in their efforts, waiting for Jean to make her decision. Several nurses had paused in the corridor, watching them curiously, but Lucien only had eyes for Jean. Jean, small and scared, wearing only a thin hospital gown, with an IV trailing from her arm up to a bag of saline. Jean, with her dark hair all in a mess, her eyes wide and round as dinner plates, watching him unblinking. She must have been terrified, he knew, and the way he'd come storming in would have only made things worse, but she was a clever woman, and he hoped with everything he had that she would take the aid he offered her. For a moment Lucien held his breath; he had just turned Dennis King, Allen Peters, and the hospital matron against him, and he might well have ruined any developing good rapport between himself and Jean, but it had to be done. Someone had to _do_ something, now, before it was too late, before whatever the malady currently growing inside of Jean was did even more damage.

"Yes," Jean said in an unsteady voice, and Lucien's shoulders slumped in relief. "Yes, I want Doctor Blake to take over my care."

Peters sighed, defeated, and his hand slipped away from Lucien's arm.

 _Thank god,_ Lucien thought.

"That's settled," Lucien said aloud, tugging his jacket back into place, spinning on his heel to face Doctor Peters. "I want my patient taken for x-rays, now. I'll fill you in on the details, shall I?"

Once Lucien had done all he could for Jean he intended to sit down beside her and talk through all of the details, but there was work to be done, and not a moment to waste.


	6. Chapter 6

"Are you comfortable, Mrs. Beazley?" the nurse asked with a sweet little smile as she tugged the thin sheet up under Jean's chin.

"Yes, thank you, Amy," Jean answered.

It was a bald-faced lie, but Amy was a good girl and a friend of Mattie's besides, and she'd done nothing to deserve bearing the brunt of Jean's pent up fear and frustration. None of this was Amy's fault; it wasn't her fault that Jean was, at present, quite as uncomfortable as she could ever recall being in her entire life, wasn't Amy's fault that she was cross, and scared, and confused, and there was nothing Amy could do or say that would make matters any better at present.

The last two hours had been a haze of noise and confusion for Jean, but just now everything was quiet, and still, and so she lay stretched out on that hospital bed, trying to order her thoughts, trying not to think how dearly she wished she were at _home_ , in her own bed, or anywhere else other than here.

Though Jean had been somewhat offended by the callous, dismissive manner in which Doctor King had delivered his diagnosis she had not had cause to doubt him. She was not as young as she once had been, and her symptoms seemed to line up with what she knew she could expect from _the change._ She'd just been uncomfortable, she told him, had started experiencing an ache low in her belly, and at the base of her spine, had told him, blushing furiously, that she found that her monthlies, regular as clockwork since Jack's birth, had suddenly grown sporadic and unpredictable. None of that had been enough to worry her, and she had taken Doctor King at his word, content with the answers he gave her. _Wait it out,_ that was all the medicine he could prescribe for her and Jean had long since grown accustomed to waiting. It was a pill she could swallow easily.

It was not Doctor King who had terrified her, shaken her down to her core; it was _Lucien_ , wild-eyed and frantic, bursting into her hospital room with all the force of an explosion. Until he showed his face she'd only been feeling a bit tired and more than a bit embarrassed about all the fuss she'd caused - fainting in the kitchen! She'd never done such a thing in all her life - but then _he'd_ turned up with a look on his face like she was dead already, begging her to let him take over her care. Not forcing her, not telling her, but asking her, beseeching, and in his fear she had found her own. What had caused his sudden distress she wasn't sure, but the moment she heard his desperate plea she had known she had no other choice but to accept. _Something_ had made Lucien terribly anxious, and he was quite the best doctor she'd ever seen, the cleverest man she'd ever met, and if he was worried, she knew she should be, too. Over the last four months she had watched him working with his patients and Matthew Lawson, had seen his unparalleled mind at work, listened as he strung together disparate facts, dissonant notes no one else would hear forming a melody in his mind and always, always solving the riddle. If there was something in the puzzle of Jean's symptoms that gave him cause to doubt Doctor King it was Lucien she would trust, and not her own physician. She would value Doctor Blake's instinct above any other man's experience.

Whatever it was he suspected, he'd yet to divulge his thinking to her, however, and being kept in the dark rankled. The moment Jean delivered herself into his hands Lucien had taken charge of everything, ordering the nurses about and trading heated, quiet words with Doctor Peters. Jean had been carted off down the hall and made to stand for x-rays, shivering and vulnerable in her hospital gown and deeply unsettled by the thought of anyone - let alone Lucien bloody Blake - looking _inside_ her. There were some things, Jean thought, that were better kept secret, some things no man should see, but Jean knew the answer to her little mystery would lie in those images, once Doctor Peters and Lucien finished examining them. They hadn't bothered telling her what they were looking for, of course, and she knew they likely wouldn't spare a moment for her until they'd finished their work. She was left, once again, waiting.

The matron, disappointed at having lost the opportunity to throw Doctor Blake out of the hospital herself, had insisted that Mattie leave, and so the girl had gone off to spend the night with friends in the nurses' quarters while Jean was left alone, cold and anxious. Has she been wrong to trust Lucien so implicitly? What if the x-rays showed nothing at all, and the tumult he'd instigated had all been for naught? Jean would be terribly embarrassed, if that were the case, but she would also be terribly relieved; whatever it was that scared Lucien so, she knew it was not a burden she'd want to take on for herself.

Oh, but he could be insufferable! Charging into her room like a white knight coming to save her, and then not sparing a moment to speak to her; was he really better than the other doctors who had so far dismissed her condition as nothing more than feminine woes? She liked to think he was, but he was a hard man to get to know. The last four months, living in that house with him, had been more confusing than enlightening. When he'd first turned up, with trembling hands and eyes that roved endlessly like a startled horse, she'd thought he just needed someone to look after him, someone to reassure him. But then he had rebuffed her every attempt at care, had missed supper more often than not, gone charging through town insulting everyone in sight, stashed empty liquor bottles in the bottom drawer of his desk like he thought she didn't know he stayed up most every night drinking himself into a terrible state.

There had been a night, not long after old Doctor Blake had died, when Jean couldn't get to sleep, and she'd heard a terrible crash echo up the stairs. She'd gone rushing out of her room in just her robe and hairnet over her pajamas, caught Mattie on the landing and sent the girl back to bed before going down to face whatever demon prowled their home herself. What she'd found, then, had quite broken her heart; Lucien, slumped over the piano, and every picture that had been sitting proudly across the back of it spilled across the floor, the glass in all the frames shattered, as if the man had swept his arm straight across and sent them all tumbling. Worse than the shattered glass and the sight of those photos of his father and mother scattered across the floor, though, was the wretched sound of his weeping.

 _Lucien,_ she'd breathed his name, and he'd spun around, eyes bleary and red-rimmed from weeping, and he'd made to stand but she'd stopped him at once. His feet were bare, and she didn't trust him to pick his way safely through the mess. _Just stay there,_ she'd told him, and gone to fetch a broom. Lucien had watched her in silence as she carefully swept up the glass; even now, months later, she could still feel the weight of his eyes upon her back. What he'd been thinking, why he'd done such a thing and what he felt watching her clean up the mess he'd made, she'd never know, for he had not spoken a word to her. As soon as it was safe he had lumbered to his feet, brushed off her attempts to guide him, and staggered off to bed, and they'd never spoken of it again. Never spoken of that night, or any of the others, the nights she heard him weeping, the nights she heard him banging on the piano, the mornings she found him slumped over his desk in the surgery, the pain that drove him to treat himself with so little regard.

 _Maybe I should have asked him,_ she thought now.

But she hadn't, and things had grown so strange between them that there had seemed no other option to her than that she leave. He could be sweet, bringing her flowers for the table out of the blue, and he could be surly, deriding her friends and neighbors - and thus Jean herself - for their provincial attitudes. He could be unpredictable, missing appointments and riling up Matthew Lawson, and then he'd turn up for dinner at 6:00 on the dot every night for a week. From one day to the next Jean never knew what to expect, but one thing she did know was that he did not seem to want her there. Oh, no doubt he appreciated having a home cooked meal and someone else to do the laundry, but she had begun to suspect that anyone could do that work, and it would make no matter to him who. He didn't want _her_ , and then the Royal Cross had put out that advertisement for maids, and it seemed meant to be, somehow. Jean would not stay where she was not wanted, and she would not spend her life cleaning up after a man who seemed to take no notice of her at all.

Only, he had taken notice of her tonight. He had rushed her to the hospital; Mattie told Jean how he had carried her to the car, how once they'd arrived he'd scooped her up and carried her inside, and she blushed to think of it, him holding her so close. The blush was half embarrassment at the liberty he'd taken and her own frailty but it was half disappointment, too, for she could not recall a moment of it, but she likewise could not deny that a piece of her heart desperately wanted to know how it would feel to be cradled in those strong arms of his.

That was the other thing about Lucien Blake that sent her running; he had gentle eyes and a warm smile and a streak of goodness running straight through the center of him that made him terribly compelling. It would be one thing to be ignored by a man who only frustrated her, but Lucien intrigued her, as well. He made her feel proud, sometimes, when she helped him with his cases, made her feel the longing to comfort him when he was lost in his own melancholy, made her long to see his smile, made her wonder... _oh,_ made her wonder so many things she could not face them all. It would not do, to linger in that house with such a man, never knowing one moment to the next what he was thinking. Lucien did not care one little bit about propriety, and he was worldly and well-traveled and handsome and probably thought nothing at all about pressing his advances toward a woman, but Jean...well. Jean did not entirely trust him, and she didn't trust herself where he was concerned, either. Better just to leave.

Only now, only this. What if something _was_ wrong, something terrible, insidious, something requiring the further dedicated care of a physician? She could hardly in good conscience turn herself over to Doctor King or Doctor Peters, knowing they both had failed her. But could she ask Lucien to continue to look after her when she was no longer living in his house? And what if was something truly horrible, something that would mean she could not take on the new job at the hotel? Would she stay on with Lucien, too weak to work, taking advantage of his money and his spacious house? Would she have to prevail upon the boys, or perhaps her sister, and find herself another doctor elsewhere? Would she ever even see him again, if they did not live in the same house? Would she want to?

 _You'll not get your answers this way and you know it,_ she told herself sternly. There was no sense in the _what ifs_ and the _if thens;_ she would just have to wait for Lucien to come back and tell her what the bloody hell was going on. Only then could she begin to make her plans for the future, and maybe, just maybe, if tonight was one of those nights when he was feeling charitable, they could make those plans together.


	7. Chapter 7

"It's not very pretty, is it?" A voice murmured from somewhere behind Lucien's shoulder, and at the sound of it his heart fell even further in his chest, if such a thing were possible. The last thing he needed tonight was to deal with Geoffrey bloody Nicholson, the pompous, money-grubbing windbag whose presence on the hospital board of directors - and constant antagonizing of Hazel Mahoney - made him a thorn in Lucien's side. To say the two men did not get along would be something of an understatement; Lucien might well have used the word _hate._ But Nicholson was an accomplished surgeon, for all that, and at this moment time in time an accomplished surgeon was precisely what Lucien needed.

"No," he agreed. "It isn't."

They were standing together in one of the observation rooms devoted to the reading of x-rays, Jean's scans plastered across the lightboard hung on the wall in front of them. There was no telling how long Nicholson had been observing him, though Lucien supposed it had not been more than a few seconds; a glance was all it would take for him to recognize what it was they were looking at, the horror that had kept Lucien rooted to the floor in this too-small room for the last quarter of an hour.

"It's a wonder the pain didn't knock her out sooner," Nicholson said, stepping up to examine the x-rays more closely.

"She's a particularly determined woman," Lucien said, choking on every word.

What those scans showed, stark and undeniable, was a cluster of remarkably large tumors gathered together in Jean's womb. Terrible, insidious things, they had sprouted up unnoticed, and grown, and grown, and grown some more until they had quite taken over the organ that had sheltered them. How long had she been in pain, and ignoring it? How long would this have gone unnoticed, if Lucien had not been there to step in? What if she'd been on her own when she fainted, and thought nothing of it, and this horror had continued to bloom unchecked? He shuddered to think of it now.

"Who called you?"

It was rather late, and Nicholson hadn't been present for any of the other consultations with hospital staff Lucien had undertaken so far this evening, and Lucien certainly hadn't sent for the man. He was left wondering how he'd come to be interrupted, and wondering whether this interruption would prove a blessing or a curse.

"I was already here, in surgery. Peters sent for me when I was finished. Seemed to think I'd be keen to take a look. He also suggested you might need managing."

Lucien barked out a laugh; the very idea of Geoffrey Nicholson managing him in any capacity was ludicrous, and they both knew it.

"He said she's your housekeeper?"

"Yes," Lucien answered carefully. "Mrs. Jean Beazley." Though he knew that most hospitals these days were more focused on efficiency than comfort it was very important to him that they refer to Jean by her name, that Nicholson see _her,_ and not just a list of symptoms to be treated.

"Peters tells me Mrs. Beazley collapsed at home."

There was very little to like about Geoffrey Nicholson, as far as Lucien was concerned, but his courteous use of Jean's name in this moment made him rise ever so slightly higher in Lucien's estimation.

"Yes, though we've no idea why. She seems fit as a fiddle, at the moment."

Nicholson stepped up closer to him, peering intently at the x-rays and rubbing thoughtfully at his chin.

"Sometimes when an ailment goes unchecked for too long, the usual systems of alerting us to danger fail, and something more drastic is needed. I've seen a patient present with sudden onset of blindness, for no apparent reason, only to discover damaged vertebrae in their back. Sometimes our bodies will do whatever it takes to get our attention. It's nature's way of sending up a smoke signal, I suppose, calling for aid."

"That's a remarkably whimsical thought," Lucien told him, somewhat impressed. He'd seen several similar cases, mostly while he was imprisoned in Selarang; blindness, pain in unaffected areas of the body, strange symptoms not at all connected to the root of the patient's true ailment. At that time, he'd chalked it up to trauma of confinement, but now he wondered if perhaps Nicholson wasn't right, after all.

"Don't tell anyone," Nicholson said wryly.

 _They'd never believe me, anyway,_ Lucien thought. He wouldn't have believed it himself, that Nicholson could have possessed such unusual notions, or such compassion. Perhaps he had been wrong to mistrust the man so completely; perhaps they had more in common than he'd initially realized.

For a moment they were both quiet, staring at the x-rays. Further scans and tests would be needed, to determine whether tumors existed elsewhere in her body, but for now, this moment, the evidence in front of them was enough to herald a great disaster.

"Could be benign," Nicholson mused.

He was right, of course; it could be those tumors weren't cancerous at all, but then again they _might_ be, and if they were, well, then there was every chance that they could spread, that they had done already, that the beautiful, intricate veins that crisscrossed through Jean's body like the tube through London, delivering much needed blood and oxygen to all her delicate systems had carried the seeds of this evil, as well. There was every chance that somewhere in her body those seeds rested now, a bomb ticking, ticking, ticking, counting down the seconds until the moment of detonation.

"Course of treatment, Doctor Nicholson?" Lucien asked. He rather thought he knew the answer, but he wanted a second opinion, wanted someone who did not care for Jean, as he did, someone who was not blinded by fear, to support his theory before he spoke it aloud.

"We could biopsy first, determine whether they're cancerous, and then make a plan," Nicholson mused. "But even if it's not cancer, those cysts pose a risk to her health. If it were up to me, I'd remove the uterus and ovaries now, then biopsy the cysts. If they're cancerous, I'd start her on a secondary course of treatment."

 _A secondary course of treatment,_ of course, was a very delicate way of saying _chemotherapy._ The field was so new, established in the days after the end of the war when scientists discovered that the same mustard gas which killed soldiers by the thousands could be turned to a better use healing patients suffering from cancer. There was so much yet to learn, but regimens had been developed that were effective in the treatment of leukemia, and lymphedema, and breast cancer. If the cysts growing in Jean's body now were cancerous, she was at a greater risk of developing the latter two of those conditions, if she hadn't already. The treatment itself was brutal, but it could give a patient a fighting chance.

"We can check the inguinal lymph nodes when we perform the hysterectomy," Nicholson continued. "That should give us a better idea of whether or not further treatment is necessary. Does that line up with your thinking, Doctor Blake?"

"It does indeed," Lucien said, but there was no pleasure in having reached this agreement, for it only spelled further horror for Jean.

"I could perform the surgery as early as tomorrow," Nicholson told him. "I need a good night's sleep, and fresh nurses to assist. I understand that you're her physician, but given your personal relationship-"

"I will not be attending," Lucien agreed. It wouldn't do for him to be in the room when Jean was cut open, to see her lying vulnerable and small on that table; Geoffrey Nicholson was more than capable, and he didn't need Lucien underfoot, anxious and devastated. Jean probably wouldn't have approved, anyway.

"Would you like to deliver the news yourself?" Nicholson asked then.

"I would."

There was no one else he could entrust with that most onerous of tasks. Jean deserved a friendly face, a familiar face in her hour of need, and much as the last few minutes had drastically changed his opinion of Geoffrey Nicholson, he rather felt she deserved to hear it from _him._ No doubt she'd be full of questions, and worries, and he wanted to hear them all, to give her what answers and reassurances it was within his power to give. The days ahead would be dark, and full of uncertainty, but he would not abandon her, not now.

"It never gets any easier, does it?" Nicholson mused. "For all our study and experience, even we can't protect the ones we love. Grief comes for us all, in time. That is, I think, the great tragedy of the doctor. We have chosen to fight death itself, and death is the one enemy that can never be defeated."

It was a shockingly poetic turn of phrase, and Lucien was left dumbstruck by it. He'd never articulated that particular thought to himself, but now that Nicholson had spoken the words he found they resonated within his very soul. He had, all his life, thrown every part of himself into this battle, as a surgeon, as a soldier, as a doctor. Even his work with the police was part of that greater war, that desperate need to find out _why,_ and maybe, one day, put a stop to it. To maybe, one day, ensure that no one else lost a mother, or a wife, or a daughter, or a brother, as Lucien himself had done. He had taken the grief that lived within his own heart, beat it into a sword, and now hacked away at the great beast of death with all his strength, day after day. Only now, now he faced that battle afresh, and he was not certain he had armed himself sufficiently for this fight.

"I'm going to get some sleep," Nicholson said, clapping him on the shoulder. "Remember, we don't yet know if it _is_ cancer. Don't give up hope just yet, Blake."

"Thank you," Lucien managed to gasp, the words sounding strangled to his own ears. Nicholson just smiled at him sadly, and walked away in silence, leaving Lucien alone with the endless churning of his thoughts.

No doubt Jean was still awake; the matron had sent Mattie home, but they were worried about a possible head injury, and so he knew they would not leave Jean to rest uninterrupted. If Nicholson meant to perform the surgery the next day, he rather felt he ought to warn her now, tonight; she would get little rest if she was worried, he knew, but she deserved as much time as possible to mull over this information, to come to terms with it, before they put her under the knife. The surgery Nicholson proposed, though it seemed quite routine to him, was no small thing. Jean would be in hospital for a fortnight, and she would need to convalesce at home for some time afterward. She could not expect to be on her feet, dancing through the house, cooking and cleaning and ordering them all about. The time had come for everyone else to care for _her_ , instead of the other way round, and he knew Jean would hate every moment of it. Still, though, she could not be better placed; with a doctor and the district nurse under the same roof, Jean could be certain to receive the very best of care.

If, of course, she chose to stay. She had already been planning to leave him; perhaps this would settle matters for her, and she would choose to go stay with some relation, and forget all about Lucien and all the trouble that came with him. Perhaps his lifestyle would be too chaotic for a woman recovering from surgery, a woman who already wanted to be shot of him. The choice would be entirely up to her, of course, but Lucien hoped, with everything he had, that she would consent to stay with him, would let him look after her, whatever came next.

 _But you have to tell her first,_ he told himself, and so he took a very deep breath, snatched Jean's x-rays down off the lightboard, and set off for the room where she lay abed, waiting for him, utterly oblivious to the terror he intended to pour out at her feet. His steps were heavy, and his heart was aching, but the thing must be done, and he had determined to see it through to the end himself. He owed her that much, he thought.


	8. Chapter 8

Jean was awake, when Lucien finally slipped through the door of her little room; a part of him had rather hoped she wouldn't be, that she would still be sleeping, that she would be allowed the grace to rest, now, before facing the horror that was to come. But of course she wasn't; the nurses were checking in on her regularly, and she had a curious nature, and Lucien knew she would have had a hard time settling down to sleep before finding out the true cause of his distress.

"Jean," he said as her eyes settled on his face. Her hands were neatly folded above the sheet that covered her, her nails red as blood against the white fabric. "I'm sorry it's taken me so long," he said. "We wanted to be sure of what we were looking at before we worried you unnecessarily." As he spoke he crossed the room and settled himself down in the chair beside her bed, and all the while her bright eyes watched him, one eyebrow raised as if in silent chastisement for his absence.

"I don't suppose you're here to tell me that you got all worked up over nothing," Jean said. Perhaps she'd meant to sound wry, or teasing, but there was just enough hesitation in her voice to give evidence of the fear he knew he had inspired in her, the fear he had awakened with his furious outburst earlier, that little ember of fear he had left to grow into a blaze while he dawdled and left her wondering. It was another strike against him, he feared, for he could see now that while he had been trying to help her he had also kept her in the dark, and he wondered if she felt cast aside by him, as she had been by Doctor Peters and Doctor King. If so he would need to rectify his error at once.

"I'm afraid it's a little more complicated than that," he answered slowly. "The x-rays showed that there cysts - masses - growing in your...well, in your womb."

One thing Lucien had learned about the ladies of Ballarat was that very few of them had been educated on all the proper terminology relating to their own anatomy. There were a host of euphemisms, a thousand little misunderstandings, that had been brought about by a general lack of education and a general disinterest in further discussion, particularly when menfolk were involved. If any lady in Ballarat were to have a solid grasp on the professional terms he was sure it was Jean, but just in case he had chosen to approach the issue gently, hoping he could do so in a way that she might understand.

"I see," she said faintly. She wasn't looking at him, anymore; her hands were clasped together so tightly that her knuckles had gone white, and she was staring at those hands determinedly, hardly blinking. What must she have been thinking? He wondered. How many questions, how many worries, had just erupted in her mind, on account of him? There was so much she kept to herself, so much he didn't know; Jean's inner world was a foreign land to him, and he did not speak the language.

"That's what's been causing your pain, and your...erm...irregularities. But Jean, I'm afraid it's impossible to tell from the x-rays whether they're cancerous."

"So I might be all right, then?" she asked, still staring at her hands. There was just enough hope in that question to tug at Lucien's heartstrings, and he wished, more than anything else, that he could promise her she had no cause for worry. Such a promise would be a lie, however, and he would not dare lie to her, not now, not about this.

"I spoke to Geoffrey Nicholson. He thinks, and I agree, that the best course of action would be surgery. We'll remove the organ, and then biopsy the masses. If they are cancerous, then we can start a secondary course of treatment."

"Remove the organ," Jean repeated. "You make it sound so simple, Lucien. But it isn't simple, is it?"

She looked up at him then, and his heart broke afresh, seeing the fear and the anger in her eyes. Oh, but there was anger within her, radiating out from her; not anger with him, he hoped, but he could not say for certain. She had every right to be angry, he thought, given the way she had so far been treated - or not, as the case may be - given the unfairness of her situation. It was a not uncommon reaction, and while he had a great deal of experience in managing his patients' distress Jean wasn't just any patient. She was rather a great deal more than that, to him.

"You want to cut me open, and remove this piece of me, and you and I both know that isn't a simple thing."

No, it wasn't. The hysterectomy would send Jean into menopause overnight; she'd be laid up in hospital for a fortnight, in some degree of pain, and she would not be able to resume her usual activity level for some time after that, and on top of those indignities her hormones would be out of balance, and she could expect to endure all sorts of unpleasantness as her body sought to regulate itself in the absence of _this piece of her_ , this unseen mass of flesh and blood that had so dictated the course of her fate.

"It isn't," he agreed heavily, not wanting to antagonize her further. "But it is a routine procedure, and one Doctor Nicholson has performed many times. It's as safe as having your tonsils removed, Jean, and once it's done your body can begin to heal."

"Unless it is cancer," she said, her eyes hard and bright as diamonds. "Then you'll want to pump me full of poison."

It was not an uncommon reaction to the new chemotherapy medications; _sometimes the cure is worse than the disease,_ that's what people said after watching their loved ones waste away under treatment. People were mistrustful of anything new, and doubly so when the evidence of their eyes belied the claims of their doctors. It did not surprise him, that Jean would speak of it so distastefully, but Lucien had kept up with all the latest research and he knew what a blessing chemotherapy could be, even in light of its chilling side effects. What Lucien wanted to tell her, just then, was that he would do whatever it took to save her, no matter the cost, no matter the unpleasantness involved, that he would have traded places with her in a moment, would do _anything_ to give her back the decades she still had left to her, all the years she was meant to spend with her children, with her friends, alive and well. If he could have taken her pain for himself he would have done it in a heartbeat, but he knew that such a confession would only confuse her, and further muddy the waters between them.

"The treatment can be difficult," he allowed, guarding his words far more carefully than he ordinarily would have done, "but it's effective. If these masses are cancerous, the treatment is your best chance for a long and healthy life."

For a moment Jean was quiet, no doubt mulling over all that Lucien had said, and he tried to give her the silence she needed to come terms with her new reality, tried to hold all his reassurances in reserve for the moment she was ready to hear them, and not overwhelm her too soon. Some ladies found the concept of a hysterectomy all but unthinkable, he knew, were mistrustful of surgeons and their newfangled ideas, but he knew that Jean read his medical journals when she thought he wasn't watching, and he hoped that the years she'd spent working in a doctor's surgery had given her a better understanding of the stakes, of the reasoning behind the choice Lucien had laid before her.

"If I agree to this," Jean said slowly, "how quickly will it happen?"

"Doctor Nicholson can perform the surgery as soon as tomorrow," Lucien said. "Then he'll biopsy the tumors, and send it to the lab for results. We could have the results within a week."

"Tomorrow," Jean mused quietly, mostly to herself, Lucien thought. "Isn't that a bit...well...soon? Do you usually move this quickly?"

"Not always." Though he had entered this room intent on moving as quickly as possible Jean's question gave him pause; was he right to bull ahead, to rush straight to surgery? Were there other options he ought to explore? Perhaps, he thought, he was so eager to see Jean well he may have jumped ahead several steps. "There's no point in further x-rays," he said, speaking as much to himself as to her, working his way through the problem even as he spoke. "Doctor Nicholson could biopsy the cysts before surgery, but he's convinced you'll need the hysterectomy either way. If we biopsy first, you'll be in pain for longer, and you'll likely end up on the operating table twice."

"I've never thought of you as particularly efficient, Lucien," she said ruefully, but before Lucien could defend himself she was speaking again. "All right. If it's my consent you need, you have it. You can do the surgery in the morning."

It was a feeble victory, but Lucien was grateful for it nonetheless. The sooner Jean underwent surgery the sooner he'd learn the truth of what ailed her, and the sooner he was able to name her illness the sooner he'd be able to treat it.

"If it is...cancer," Jean said haltingly, "will I need to stay in hospital very long?"

She had, however unknowingly, just struck upon the very topic that most concerned Lucien at present. He had an idea as to how he wanted to manage her care, should worst come to worst, but he had no idea how she'd feel about the proposition, if she'd even entertain the notion. _No time like the present,_ he told himself.

"If it is cancer, the medication is given intravenously. Most patients do stay in hospital for the duration of treatment so that they can be monitored by physicians. But, I was thinking, well...if you'd rather, I could just as easily treat you at home. I have the equipment, and Mattie and I can manage picking up the medication from the hospital. You could sleep in your own bed, with all your own things, without strangers poking and prodding at you."

That was the vision Lucien had conjured for himself, the one comfort he had found in the midst of this calamity. Jean needed _care_ , not the cold efficiency of the hospital but the dedicated care of those closest to her. As far as he was concerned both he and Mattie owed her a great debt, considering how hard she had worked at looking after the pair of them, and perhaps the time had come for them to repay the favor. Not to mention, of course, that if she was at home, if he was the one looking after her, he could assure himself that she was well, that she wanted for nothing, would not have to worry about her cold and lonesome in the hospital. Her boys could come and see her whenever they wished, if she was at home, would not be bound by the severely restricted visiting hours the hospital allowed. She could see her friends, too, could feel a part of her own life, in some small way, and that was a gift he very much wanted to give her.

As he spoke a thoughtful expression seemed to come over her, as if she had buried her own grief and fear and hurt just long enough to turn his suggestion over in her mind. Perhaps she might think it undignified, to have her weakness laid bare before him in such a way; perhaps she thought the very idea of his constant concern distasteful. Perhaps he had over stepped, he began to worry now, perhaps there was somewhere else she'd rather stay, perhaps he'd lost her already-

"If it comes to it," she said, "I think that would be...nice. I've never much cared for hospitals," she added, plucking at the thin sheet draped over her lower half.

"Me neither," Lucien said, and for the first time all night, he saw the slightest smile tug up at the corner of her lips. "Now," he added, "it's very late, and I think you ought to try to get some rest. Unless you have any more questions for me now?"

"No," Jean said, shaking her head. "I may have a few questions for Doctor Nicholson tomorrow, but for right now, I think this is enough. Thank you, Lucien."

He reached out then, quite without thinking, and covered the knot of her hands with one of his own. "Whatever you need, Jean," he said. "I'll make sure you have it."

"In that case, perhaps you might do me a favor?"

She looked uncertain, as if she feared she might have overstepped the mark, but she could have asked him for the moon itself in that moment and he would have given it to her. She was so bloody _brave,_ not cowering in the face of this news, not lashing out in anger or fear - though he suspected the time for that would come - practical, as always, seeking for solutions rather than allowing her emotions to run roughshod over her. There was a strength in Jean Beazley he knew few people could match, and he admired her for it.

"Of course," he answered at once.

"There's a list of numbers by the telephone in the kitchen," she told him. "Could you...tomorrow, that is, not tonight, it's far too late, but, could you ring young Christopher, in the morning, and tell him what's happened? I'd do it myself but I don't remember the number."

"I will," Lucien promised at once. Despite the moniker his mother used for him young Christopher was the elder of her two boys, he knew, and he would be glad to ring the lad and fill him in on everything that had happened. It would mark the first time Lucien would ever speak to either of her children, and the very prospect of it filled him with curiosity. What sort of man would he be, this child Jean had raised herself? Would he have his mother's strength, her practical, conservative nature? What had his father been like, and did young Christopher share more in common with that man than just their names? And what would he think of Lucien, calling him up to impart such personal information?

"I don't want him to try to come visit, he's far too busy for that," Jean said matter-of-factly. "Don't you let him get any wild ideas in his head. But I do think he ought to know."

Lucien smiled; of course she wouldn't want a fuss. Apart from her passion for the theater Jean never really seemed to seek out the spotlight, and he knew she'd be mortified if she thought people were paying her too much attention. Whatever she wanted, though, if young Christopher wished to come and see his mother Lucien had no intention of trying to stop him. Lucien rather thought Jean deserved a bit of fussing over, all things considered.

"I'll tell him," he said.

"Good. Now, off you pop. You need your rest, too."

Lucien very nearly answered _yes, mum;_ she'd spoken in that no-nonsense tone that brooked no argument, spoken with that maternal power she possessed that was so uniquely Jean, that everyone around her was powerless to resist. There was something about Jean; she commanded people effortlessly, without shouting or aggression of any sort. The great and the inconsequential alike fell before her, cowed by some base instinct that required all creatures to do as their mothers said, even when they had long since grown into adulthood.

"I'll visit you first thing in the morning," Lucien promised her earnestly. "I'll see you before Doctor Nicholson takes you into surgery, and I'll ring for Christopher after that."

"Thank you, Lucien," she told him. "Really, I am...I am grateful to you. If it hadn't been for you…"

If it hadn't been for Lucien, Doctor Peters would have sent her home hours before. If it hadn't been for Lucien they would have no idea of just how dire her situation had grown. If it hadn't been for Lucien, if those cysts had been left to fester unchecked, and then...it didn't bear thinking about. And yet Lucien felt no pride in himself, for having seen what others could not. He felt grief, to think how close Jean had come to disaster, to wonder how many other ladies had once stood in her shoes and not had a doctor to speak for them. He felt fear, thinking of the future, wondering what lay in store for Jean. He felt determination, determination to fight like hell for her, to keep her safe, and well. And he felt admiration, for her, for her courage, for her strength.

"Sleep well, Jean," he said, softly, and then he rose, and donned his hat, and left her to her worries, and, hopefully, to a dreamless sleep.


	9. Chapter 9

Somehow, Jean managed to keep her tears and her grief and her rage at bay just long enough to see Lucien on his way safely home. It took every ounce of pride she possessed to keep her lip from trembling, to keep the sobs from tearing out of her in great, ragged gasps, but she was Jean Beazley, and she did not go to pieces where others could see. Especially not where _he_ could see, this strange, kind man who had so upended her life.

The moment he left, however, a hitching, choking sort of sound bubbled up from deep within her chest, and tears began to spill down her cheeks unchecked. There was no one present to witness her devastation, and so she let it come, shoulders shaking, lungs constricted, the red-eyed, runny-nosed sort of weeping she had not indulged in for years now overtaking her utterly.

_It's impossible to tell...if these masses are cancerous...if it is cancer…_

He had been compassionate, even she could see that. He had spoken to her gently, offered her a plan of action and what little reassurance he could, but she took no comfort from his kindness. It was Lucien who had discovered this truth that had so eluded her other physicians, Lucien who had carried her into the hospital, who had come bursting through her door with that terrible look on his face, _Lucien,_ who sought to take her womb from her, and breathed life into her trembling fear. Oh, it wasn't his fault, she knew, and one day she would be grateful to him for his aid, for his support, for the tender touch of his hand, but it was Lucien who had spoken that word _cancer,_ and it would be some time yet before she'd find it in her heart to forgive him for that.

 _Cancer._ Such a small word, and yet to Jean it seemed to represent the end of everything. She had been long enough in the world, and long enough working in a doctor's surgery, to know that once that word had been spoken it could only be followed by horror, and only rarely did that horror resolve itself into hope. She'd seen it, in old Doctor Blake's patients, in some of her fellow parishioners from Sacred Heart, doomed souls she'd visited in their hour of need, and buried months later. She'd seen the way those medications took their toll, seen people grow thin and weary, the hairless heads, the trembling hands. _That_ was what Lucien meant to do to her, if it was indeed cancer, and her heart shrieked in terror at the very thought.

And yet she knew, rationally, that she had no other choice. Left unchecked, the cancer itself would kill her, and the medication would offer her a fighting chance. A small chance, but a chance nonetheless. A chance for recovery, a chance to reclaim her life via a scorched earth attack that would leave all of her withering in the hopes that the healthy parts of her body might sprout from the ashes, whole and well. It was a chance she knew she would have to take.

If indeed it was cancer. That word, _if_ , was nearly as terrifying to her as _cancer._ There was hope bound up in that word, but in Jean's experience hope so often ended in disappointment; dreams shattered more often than they came true. If she placed all her hope in that word _if,_ if she clung stubbornly to the belief that it was not cancer at all, that she would not need the damnable chemotherapy and the pain that came with it, how much greater would her devastation be when the truth turned out to be otherwise? Perhaps it would be best - she thought while still the tears splashed down her cheeks, left her vision blurry and her breathing ragged - if she resigned herself to her fate now. Perhaps it would be best to simply accept that it _was_ cancer. In the event that it wasn't, she could be relieved, and in the event that it was, she would be vindicated, and resolved.

But could she really do that, admit defeat before the battle had even begun? Lucien had proposed a possible arrangement for her, should circumstances grow as dire as he suspected. He had opened his home to her, and offered himself and his services to the duty of her care. Jean had agreed, quickly, before pride stayed her tongue, but in truth she found the very prospect galling. She had been on the verge of making a break from him, her independence within her grasp, and now she felt it all cruelly snatched away. Before this night she had been dreaming of a steady, predictable profession, a job she could set aside each afternoon, and a neat little cottage all her own she could return to when her working day was done. Before this night she had been wondering what color she'd like to paint her kitchen, had counted her savings and found more than enough to furnish her new lodgings; only the day before she had stopped into Sullivan's furniture store on Lydiard Street and admired a matching sofa and armchair set, thinking merry thoughts of her sitting room, wondering whether Christopher and Ruby might be willing to make the trip up from Adelaide, to celebrate her first Christmas in her new home.

Those dreams were gone now, she knew. The Royal Cross would not have her now; they were in urgent need of maid staff, and they would not hold a position open for her while she recuperated from her surgery. Even if she did not need further treatment she'd be laid up too long, and that opportunity was lost to her now. She would have to stay on with Doctor Blake; if she could be on her feet again in a month, she supposed it would not be so great an imposition. Lucien and Mattie could fend for themselves for a few weeks, and she could resume her duties around the house and earn her keep until another chance for escape presented itself. If it _was_ cancer, though, months stretched out in front of her where she'd be no good to anyone at all, forced to rely on Lucien's good graces for everything she needed.

She knew she ought to be grateful. The world was not kind to a woman on her own, particularly not a woman Jean's age, with no husband, nowhere to turn for aid. Christopher and Ruby lived on base, and would not have room for her. Jack was renting a room in Melbourne, and the thought of asking him for assistance was laughable. Her parents were dead, her sister...well, Eadie would not doubt make room for her, if she asked, but it would not be a pleasant experience for either of them. Staying in Doctor Blake's house would provide the comforts of home and the best care she could hope for, and that was why she had agreed to it. If it would wound her pride, if it would leave her feeling as if she were no more than dead weight hanging around his neck, if it would chafe, being so beholden to him, she supposed that was one more pill she'd have to swallow along with all the rest.

It wasn't bloody _fair;_ even as the thought occurred to her she chided herself for being so petulant, and scrubbed her hands across her cheeks. Life, she knew, was rarely fair, rarely kind, rarely just. It was lucky, really, that she had Lucien to turn to in her hour of need, lucky indeed that he had extended the offer himself, and spared her the indignity of having to ask. She could not have been better placed, all things considered. Doctor Nicholson was available and ready to perform her surgery quickly, without further discomfort. The lab would have her results by the end of the week, and then she'd know better what the future held. Lucien had already promised to ring young Christopher, to be by her side every moment. Everything was already in hand, well taken care of.

 _Everything but me,_ she thought. A moment before she thought she had come through the worst of her weeping, but it redoubled again as her resolve wavered. It was late, and the room was dark, and Jean was alone, utterly, completely alone. Her children were not by her side, and the matron had sent Mattie home, and Jean had sent Lucien off herself. How pitiful her life seemed, in that moment, with no one to comfort her, no one to sit beside her save for her employer, a man whose recklessness, whose impulsivity, whose selfish grandiosity had sent her fleeing from him; Lucien was now her only hope.

 _And who else would ever want me, after this?_ She wondered in the darkness. Oh, the days of _the change_ were not far off; she'd known before this night that there would be no more children in her future, and she had not lamented for it. In truth she had known the day that she learned of Christopher's death that her family was complete; she could not look for romance while she had children to raise, and once they were grown thoughts of starting over did not appeal to her. But a man might have been nice, she thought. A man to stand beside her, to hold her, to share her life; she wasn't given to flights of fancy, but she was only human, and she craved companionship, just as anyone else might. But what man would want her, empty, weak, broken? How could anyone ever look on her with anything but pity, knowing how her body had poisoned itself and betrayed her?

In one day, everything had changed. She no longer felt the strength, the energy that carried through her life to this point, no longer looked upon the future with hope for herself, could not longer imagine a life filled with joy, waiting for her to find it one day. Now, now there was only grief, as if she had over the course of one day grown old and weary. She could not find work to support herself, would not be able to keep her own house. She could not even in good conscience earn her wages from Doctor Blake. She could not go to the cinema, and see a handsome man sitting on his own, and wonder if fate had placed her in his path for a reason. If she were forced to undergo chemotherapy would she be too weak to go to church, to organize the flowers, to meet with the sewing circle and the film society ladies?

The four walls of that little room seemed to close in on her, taunting her, poking and prodding at her and reminding her of her isolation. Friends, family, occupation; all of it was slipping through her fingers, and she felt she had very little to show for her life, for all the years she had spent working so hard, trying to be everything that everyone needed her to be. And what was she now? A drain, a burden, a charity case for Doctor Blake, or perhaps a curiosity for him; perhaps he only wanted her to stay with him so that he could monitor her symptoms up close, her body an experiment like so many others he had conducted in his lab. Even if that were true she would have to find the good grace to accept his assistance any way, for she had nowhere else to turn.

It was a cruel turn of fate, and she cursed it with everything she had, wanting to scream, to tear the telephone from the wall and hurl it across the room to vent her own distress, but she knew it would not make her feel any better, and she restrained herself for the sake of the nurses.

 _This is your lot, Jean Beazley,_ she told herself sternly, scrubbing her palms across her cheeks. _And you will make the best of it, the way you always do. What other choice do you have?_

Her head pounded from her tears, from the fall she'd taken, from the stress of the day, and so she rolled onto her side, pulled the blanket up to her chin, and closed her eyes. It wasn't fair, it wasn't right, but it _was_ , just the same. This was the hand that had been dealt to her, and she would play it. Let the doctors perform their surgery, and their tests. Let Lucien fuss over her, and do what he must. _Let it come,_ she thought, and _let me come out the other side. This too shall pass._

She was too tired to pray, and too angry for it in any case, and so she only breathed, slowly, deeply, until sleep came for her at last, and her thoughts quieted, for however brief a time.


	10. Chapter 10

That night Lucien didn't sleep a wink. He couldn't blame his restlessness on the whiskey - for in truth he'd had no more than three fingers' worth all night long - and nor could he blame it on the medical journals he'd spread across his desk; he had meant to read them, but he'd hardly glanced at them, for his thoughts were elsewhere, down the road in the hospital with Jean.

She had been so brave, so calm, so collected while they spoke, though he had seen stormclouds brewing in her eyes. Had she gone to pieces, after? Cried, or prayed, or barked at her nurses, scared and out of sorts? Or had she just carried on, the way she always seemed to do, holding all of herself so tightly controlled that no ounce of her distress was able to burst free? He rather hoped she hadn't felt the need to keep such a tight rein on her emotions once she was alone, for he knew that he had delivered a tremendous blow to her, and he worried what might become of her heart if she did not let it breathe.

He worried, too, what might become of him without her. Only the night before she had told him of her plans to leave him - had it only been such a little while since that conversation? It felt to him as if a lifetime had passed since then - and over the course of the intervening day he'd dedicated rather a lot of thought to the prospect of her leaving.

In some ways, he had thought things might go more easily for him without her there, for he was too old to require the fussing of a mother and his heart was too bruised to accept the attention of a wife. Jean had been neither, and yet somehow both, managing his home and his meals and his clothes and his calendar. He had thought, over the course of the day, how he might replace her, whether he might find someone else to fill her shoes, whether he needed to. The loss that loomed in front of him now seemed vastly different than it had that morning; in the morning, he had been thinking of the loss of her services, but in the darkness he thought of the loss of her life, and trembled with fear. Jean, brave Jean, fierce Jean, Jean who brooked no nonsense and loved her sons and grew such beautiful flowers; the world would be a poorer place without her in it, and he would do whatever he could to see that such a calamity would not come to pass. If she chose to leave him willingly he would let her go; he would not let the cancer take her.

Daylight came bleeding through the curtains on his office window reedy and thin, and he roused himself, went off in search of a bath and a clean suit. The hospital would not permit visitors until 9:00 a.m., but as her physician Lucien hoped he would be allowed entrance earlier in the day. In fact, he meant to insist on it.

When he came stalking into the kitchen an hour later, as ready to face the day as he would ever be, he found Mattie burning a pan of eggs with four black pieces of toast on a plate beside her elbow.

"Not a word," she told him in a tremulous voice, her gaze flickering to the ruined toast.

"I'll just get the tea things, shall I?" he answered. Only a fool would have mocked her in a moment such as this. Mattie was a good girl, and her work as District Nurse had helped to broaden both her skills and her perspectives, but she was a city girl, the daughter of a politician, and she had been raised to be pretty and clever; her family had employed a housekeeper and several other staff around the house, and she had not been taught to cook or clean or do any of the things that Jean did without thinking. Lucien had never been taught, either - though he was a dab hand at scrambling an egg - and he would not hold that against her.

"Did you find out what's wrong with her?" Mattie asked him as he started up the kettle and reached for the sugar bowl, and it was only then that he realized Mattie had no idea what had transpired the night before. The matron had sent her home long before Lucien spoke to Jean, and no one else had offered her any insight, and his shoulders sank beneath the burden that had just settled upon him.

"Why don't you have a seat?" Lucien said, as kindly as he could. Mattie's face paled, but she did as he asked, went and folded herself into a chair. Lucien threw the ruined pan into the sink, located a new one, and gathered up several more eggs, thinking hard all the while. Mattie was a professional, but she was Jean's friend, too, and she was so _young,_ and he did not want to give her cause to worry unnecessarily, but he likewise did not want to hide anything from her. It would be a delicate line to walk.

But he did it, just the same, told Mattie exactly what he'd told Jean the night before, about the surgery, about how it might be cancer or it might not, about how they ought not lose hope. By the time he was finished, Mattie was crying.

* * *

Doctor Blake was permitted to visit his patient in hospital, but the District Nurse had rounds to make and no one to cover for her, and so he went alone, carrying a note from Mattie to Jean in his pocket. He went straight to Jean's bed, and found her sitting up straight, smiling wanly when she caught sight of him.

"You haven't slept," she said as he crossed the room to her bedside.

"Neither have you," he answered. He didn't ask her how she'd known; he imagined his face looked rather like hers, drawn and pale. She wore no makeup, and between the white hospital gown and the white hospital sheets she looked almost like a ghost, save for the bright shine of her eyes and the glossy darkness of her hair.

"Mattie sent this for you," Lucien said as he settled into the chair beside her, reaching into his pocket to produce the note. Jean took it and read it in silence, and he did not pester her with questions; the bond between Jean and Mattie was a sweet one, a special one, and he would not dare interfere. Whatever they had to say to one another was meant to be private, and he had no part to play in it. By the time she finished reading Jean's eyes were a bit misty, and she folded the note neatly back the way it had been before sliding it onto the little table beside her bed.

"Well," she said, clearing her throat. "Doctor Nicholson's already been in once this morning. I know you don't care for him but I found him very...reassuring."

"Geoffrey Nicholson and I disagree on many things but he's a very capable surgeon. You're in good hands, Jean." He believed that, with all his heart; Nicholson was a bastard, but he did his job well, and Lucien had developed a grudging respect for the man the night before.

"He says they'll come fetch me in the next half hour or so." Jean wouldn't meet his eye; she was looking straight down, her delicate hands absently smoothing the blanket across her lap. Lucien cursed himself for dawdling over breakfast; it was still quite early, but he'd missed Nicholson's meeting with Jean, and so had not been by her side when Nicholson explained the procedure and everything she could expect to endure over the next few hours. When they came for Jean and wheeled her back into the operating room there were several tasks they would need to complete before she was anesthetized, and then the surgery itself would likely take two hours. It would be longer before she was recovered, and longer still before the indignities of surgery were resolved, and Jean had been forced to face all of that information alone, with no one but Geoffrey Nicholson to comfort her. Still, though, she'd said she found the man _reassuring._ Lucien hoped that was true.

"I'll be here the whole time," Lucien promised her. "I've brought young Christopher's telephone number," he patted his jacket pocket as if to prove to her that it was there. "I'll ring him while you're in surgery, and then again once you're out, so he knows you're all right."

"I expect he'll be at work," Jean mused, still not looking at him. "His wife might answer the phone instead. Ruby."

Not for the first time Lucien found himself wondering about Jean's family; how long had the lad been married? Where had the ceremony taken place? Had Jean been happy, on the day, the mother of the groom beautiful and glowing, or had family politics cast a pallor over one side of the aisle or the other? Was Jean one of those mothers who believed no girl was good enough for her boy?

"Then I shall speak to Ruby," he told her pleasantly. "And maybe later this afternoon, once you're feeling better, you can ring him yourself."

Jean smiled, but there was no gladness in it. "That would be nice," she said.

"Did Doctor Nicholson answer all your questions? Are you feeling all right about...about everything?"

They did not discuss _feelings,_ Lucien and Jean, being two people who were not much in the habit of confronting the ghosts in their hearts directly, and not having gotten to know one another well enough to try. They spoke of receipts and dinner and sometimes discussed his cases, but _feelings_ had never factored into the bargain. Just now, however, Lucien was terribly concerned about Jean, and he felt it was his duty to ask.

"I don't have any more questions," she told him. "None anyone can answer just now, at any rate. Do you know, Lucien, I've never even been in hospital before?"

She looked up at him, finally, but her eyes were round and scared and troubled, and Lucien wanted, more than anything, to reach out and take hold of her hand, but he held himself back; she had accepted him the night before, but he did not know how such a gesture might be received in the broad light of day.

"Both my boys were born at home," she said softly. That had been the way of things, twenty years before when Jean had been a young mother, and it was still the way of things now for most families, though there had been a push in recent years for more hospital births. No doubt Jean had given birth to her sons lying in her own bed, with the District Nurse and perhaps a midwife by her side. Her mother might have been there, too; Lucien hoped, for her sake, that was the case. It was a gentle thought.

"It will be all right," he told her. No doubt she was frightened by so much of this, the anesthesia, the scalpels, the growing sense of doom that had settled in that place. He couldn't blame her; Lucien was frightened, too. "It's a routine procedure," he started to say, but her eyes flashed at him, baleful and fiery, and he swallowed his platitudes. It might have been routine for the surgeons and the nurses who had performed this operation on dozens of different women, but it was most certainly _not_ routine for Jean, and without her saying a word he heard all the admonitions she longed to throw at him. To her credit, though, she did not berate him; she seemed satisfied that he had been cowed, and so she sighed, and looked away.

"I'm scared," she said to the wall, her voice hardly more than a whisper. From beside her bed Lucien could see that her hands were trembling. It took more courage to admit to fear than to deny it, Lucien knew; to feel fear, but carry on in spite of it, was the very definition of courage, and Jean had courage in spades.

"I know," Lucien said, and then he threw caution to the wind, and reached for her hand. _I'd do the same for any patient,_ he told himself, and did not question the lie.

"I know you don't believe," she said softly, "but would you...would you pray with me, Lucien?"

When the full brilliance of her blue-grey eyes turned to his face he could deny her nothing, and so he only smiled at her gently.

"Of course," he said.

With their hands clasped tight together they both bowed their heads, and closed their eyes.

" _Hail Mary, full of grace,"_ Jean said, and Lucien joined his voice to hers as they continued, " _the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus."_ Jean's voice cracked on the word _womb,_ but she carried on, and Lucien with her. That was how the nurse found them, moments later, eyes closed, praying; she had entered the room ready to speak, but when she caught sight of them she withdrew, stood alone in the corridor and whispered a prayer of her own while she allowed Mrs. Beazley and Doctor Blake a moment of privacy.


	11. Chapter 11

"Beazley residence."

The voice on the other end of the phone belonged to a young woman; she sounded shockingly, almost painfully chipper to Lucien's ears, but then of course the young lady in question had absolutely no way of knowing why he'd called, and so could not be expected to moderate herself for the sake of his rapidly fraying nerves.

"Good morning," Lucien said. "This is Doctor Lucien Blake. Might I speak with Christopher Beazley, please?"

Idly he wondered if the girl would recognize his name; surely young Christopher knew his mother worked for Lucien Blake, now that the elder Blake had passed on, but would his wife know? As far as he was aware Jean hardly ever used the phone for personal conversations, and he could not recall a single instance in which she'd made reference to speaking to her daughter-in-law. In fact, Lucien had never even heard the girl's name, not until his conversation with Jean the night before. Jean had alluded to the fact that her son was married a time or two, but nothing more. And wasn't that strange, he thought; most women never stopped talking about their children, but he knew next to nothing about Jean's sons.

"I'm afraid he's at work," the girl told him. She sounded decidedly less enthusiastic, now; a tinge of wariness had crept into her tone, as if she doubted his intentions. It was a quick and rather dramatic change of pace, and left Lucien's head spinning, somewhat.

"Am I speaking with Ruby, then?" he asked. "Er, Mrs. Beazley, I mean."

That was stranger still, calling another woman _Mrs. Beazley._ There was only one _Mrs. Beazley,_ in Lucien's mind, the one currently lying on the operating table in theater just down the hall. He wondered whether Jean felt the same, as if she were the only one who could claim that title, as if Ruby herself was an impostor. He wondered whether Jean approved of her.

"What's this about?" Ruby asked, now impatient, and Lucien rushed to explain himself.

"Mrs. Beazley, I'm calling because Jean, that is, Christopher's mother, Mrs. Beazley, she's my housekeeper."

"Oh, no, something's happened, hasn't?" First eager, then standoffish, Ruby had quickly shifted into a mood that sounded rather a lot like panic. "Oh, please tell me she's all right, Christopher will be ever so worried, and I can't reach him just now, he's in training, oh, I'll have to ring the Sergeant, and-"

"Ruby!" Lucien cut across her nattering a bit more sharply than he'd intended. "Mrs. Beazley," he continued in a far more level tone, "Jean is going to be all right. There's no need to fetch Christopher now, Jean should be able to ring him herself this evening."

"Oh, thank goodness," Ruby sighed earnestly, and her relief was palpable to Lucien from the other end of the phone.

"Would you be able to take down a few notes? I'd like to give you some information on her condition, so you can tell Christopher when he gets home."

"Yes, that's a fine idea, just a moment." He heard a soft _thump_ as Ruby set the receiver down and went off in search of pen and paper. In truth he probably could have just told her outright, but she appeared to be an... _excitable_ sort, and he wanted to be sure that Christopher received the right information in a timely fashion.

"Go ahead, Doctor Blake," her voice in his ear made him jump; his mind had been wandering, thinking of Jean, and Geoffrey Nicholson, wondering how the surgery was going.

"Jean has been taken into surgery for an ailment of a...feminine nature," Lucien said carefully. "It's a routine procedure, and we expect her to make a full recovery." He hesitated for a moment while Ruby scribbled down his words. Ought he tell her about the potential cancer? There was no way to know, just yet, whether Jean had cancer at all, and he knew she didn't want a fuss, didn't want anyone to worry for her sake unnecessarily. It seemed to him that Ruby was exactly the sort of young lady who might make quite a big fuss indeed; it would be better, he decided, to pass that information along to Christopher directly, and not worry young Ruby with it.

"The surgery should be over in an hour or so," he said. "I'll ring again, once she's out, so that you know she's all right. And Jean herself will ring this evening, when she's feeling better. What time does Christopher usually come home?"

"He should be in on the dot of 6:00," Ruby rushed to answer.

"Perfect. I'll ring you again soon, Mrs. Beazley, just as soon as Jean's out of surgery."

"Thank you so much, Doctor Blake," Ruby told him, her words tumbling out of her mouth as if she couldn't get them out fast enough. "We do so worry for Mrs. Beazley-" strange, he thought, that she should refer to her mother-in-law in such a formal way "-being all alone out there in Ballarat, and it's just so comforting to know that you're there to look after her. Chris will be so grateful to you for calling. I'm grateful to you, I'm sure that if it were up to Mrs. Beazley she'd never have rung at all until it was all over."

It was quite a revealing little speech, Lucien thought. It seemed to him, based on Ruby's words, that Jean's relationship with her son and his wife was rather distant, as if they perhaps did not talk as much or as often as they might have liked, as if they were not as much a part of one another's worlds as some family members are. It grieved him, to think her estranged from her son; he knew she loved the boy dearly. They hardly discussed him at all, but Lucien knew it just the same, because he knew _Jean._

"Well, we all want what's best for her," he said, meaning every word. "I'll speak to you again soon, Mrs. Beazley. Take care."

"And you, Doctor Blake," she told him, and he promptly hung up the phone, and scrubbed his hands over his face.

As near as he could tell, young Christopher was probably two years or so older than his Li. Unlike Lucien, Jean had been blessed to watch her children grow up, to guide them into adulthood, and his thoughts wandered once more to the subject of Christopher's wedding. How had he met this girl? Had Jean known her, before Ruby and Christopher wed? Had she worried about her boy, getting married so young, had she worried about whether or not Ruby would make a good wife for him? And...and what about Li, he asked himself, his darling daughter, Li who Lucien would always remember as a charming little girl with ribbons in her hair. Had Li survived? Was she a woman grown, now, living on the other side of the world? Was she happy? Was she wed, as Christopher was; would Lucien have liked the young man she chose for herself? Would the lad call him _Doctor Blake,_ and offer to shake his hand? So many questions, and yet though he searched his heart he found no answers.

Lucien heaved a great sigh, and meandered away from the telephone, plopping himself down on one of the hard benches in the corridor outside the operating theater. He had done his duty, and rung for Jean's son, warned her family of the troubles she was enduring, and now he had nothing at all to do. Nothing but wait, and wonder, and worry.

It was a routine procedure. Lucien had performed it himself a time or two. A vertical incision, the removal of the offending organs done neatly, carefully, tying everything back up again, stitches, done. Doctors, nurses, bright lights, the splash of blood; he could see it all, Jean pale and prone and vulnerable on the table, the anesthetic keeping her asleep while Geoffrey bloody Nicholson butchered her -

Lucien's hands began to shake, and he clenched them into fists.

It was necessary. The surgery was necessary, to spare her further pain and discomfort, and also to determine whether further measures were needed. The surgery was necessary, to save her life, to give her back all the years she had yet to enjoy, to free her from the torment of her own body. It was necessary. Sometimes necessary things were terrible to look at, terrible even to imagine, but, still, _necessary._

 _She'll be all right,_ he told himself.

 _She was so scared,_ a voice in the back of his mind seemed to answer him, and he hung his head.

She was strong, was Jean, and he tried to remind himself of that now, and not think of the way her voice had trembled when she prayed. She was brave, and healthy, despite all this. She'd never even been in hospital before, and she was an active sort of woman. He did not doubt, even for a moment, that she would come through the surgery well.

 _Statistically speaking,_ that same terrible voice reminded him, _there is a chance -_

_Jean will be fine._

It was the thought of what might happen after the surgery that worried him most. Likely Jean would think the fortnight in hospital dull and undignified, but no harm would befall her there. In a few days' time, however, they'd have their answer. In a few days' time they'd know whether she was indeed suffering from cancer, whether she'd need more surgery, whether she'd need the chemotherapy, whether she'd be laid up in bed far longer than a fortnight. In a few days' time they would know just how much they had to worry about, and that scared him, deeply.

He had already resolved himself to take her care entirely into his own hands, had already offered it, and promised it. He had done so rashly, desperately, looking for a way to soothe Jean and spare her the long miserable months lost in the bleak efficiency of the hospital with only short, restrained visits from friends to alleviate her boredom and her fear. As he turned it over in his mind now, though, he realized just how great a burden he had assumed for himself. He would have to touch her, to sink needles into her pale skin, press his fingers to the delicate skin of her wrist, her neck. He would have to monitor her weight, and blood pressure, and log every terrible symptom he saw, would have to familiarize himself with all the private, personal details of her body. And her hope, her future, her very life, would rest solely, completely in his hands. As a doctor the loss of a patient was inevitable, but the loss of Jean…

To lose her would break him, he was certain. He had disappointed her so much already, and he could not bear the thought of doing so again. Jean, who was brave and strong and fierce and lovely, Jean who had set her mind against him and endeavored to remove him from her life, would now rely on him, completely.

He wondered whether she'd realized all of that, when she agreed to let him treat her. He wondered whether her acceptance was a reflection of her faith in him, or if it had only been born of her desperate fear. He wondered how on earth they were going to get through this.

He wondered many things, and the seconds slipped slowly by, the clock haunting him, taunting him, until at last a bedraggled looking nurse came to find him. _Mrs. Beazley's come through surgery just fine,_ the nurse told him. _We're going to get her settled, and then you can come back and see her in about an hour._ The nurse had a sweet, sympathetic look on her face, and Lucien wondered about that, too, wondered whether everyone could see that Jean was more than just another patient to him. Jean wouldn't have approved of that, he knew, and so he only thanked the nurse, and dragged himself to his feet.

Jean was all right, and soon enough she'd be awake, and he could go and see her in an hour. That was plenty of time to ring Ruby, to assure her that her mother-in-law would be well, and go in search of something to eat. Maybe the situation wouldn't seem so dire with a sandwich in his belly, he thought, but it would have to be purchased from the cafe down the road, for in that moment he could not bear the thought of stepping into his house without Jean beside him.


	12. Chapter 12

"All right, Mrs. Beazley," the nurse said, gently turning back the covers on Jean's hospital bed. "Let's try to go for a little walk, shall we?"

For a moment Jean simply stared at the girl, horrified by the very suggestion. It hadn't been long at all since they wheeled Jean in from surgery, since she slowly, groggily dragged herself into consciousness. The nurses had taken her blood pressure, checked her vision, her reflexes, and given her something for the pain that left her with a strange, foggy sensation, as if her mind had been somehow severed from her body, as if though she was seeing through her own eyes she could not feel them blink. Surely, she thought, they'd want her to stay in bed; she would be trapped in hospital for a fortnight, her activity limited while she healed, and knowing that she couldn't imagine that standing up now, so soon after surgery, would be a very good idea.

The nurse seemed to understand her hesitation, and smiled at her encouragingly.

"It'll be all right, Mrs. Beazley," she said gently. "A little walk will do you good. We won't go far."

 _I suppose she has her reasons,_ Jean told herself, and so she gingerly slipped out of bed, trying not to twist or turn her body in the movement, mindful of the scar now running in a straight line across her lower belly. They had dressed her in a clean hospital gown that reached almost to her knees and was mercifully closed in the back to protect her dignity, but as Jean rose gingerly to her feet a familiar, dreadfully unwelcome feeling washed over her.

"Oh," she sighed, "I'm not sure this is a good idea at all. I'm afraid I might be...well, that I'm…" she gestured vaguely towards her lower half. Her sense of propriety was so deeply ingrained that even through the fog of medications she could not bring herself to state plainly what had happened, not even to the nurse, who had surely seen worse.

"You'll probably bleed down there for a little while, Mrs. Beazley," the nurse told her. "It's all part of the process. It will pass. And in the meantime we've got you all wrapped up, and we'll check on you regularly. Nothing to worry about."

As far as Jean was concerned, bleeding was _absolutely_ something to worry about, but the nurse didn't seem too bothered, and Jean was too tired to protest. _I suppose it'll be all right,_ she thought, _as long as I don't leave a trail down the corridor like a snail._

The nurse held out her arm and Jean took it, leaning heavily on the young woman as they moved slowly away from her bedside. When Jean first stood the world had swayed dangerously beneath her feet, her head spinning as if she'd been caught and tumbled beneath the waves of the sea, but with each step she took she grew more steady, and the fog seemed to lift. With her free hand the nurse opened the door, and then they stepped through it, out into the corridor.

There were a few people milling about, doctors and nurses going this way and that between rooms, but as Jean and the nurse turned to the right to begin their amble down the corridor one face in particular jumped out at her.

Lucien Blake was sitting on a bench just outside her room, a half-eaten sandwich clutched in his hands and his suit jacket laid neatly across the benchback beside him. He had raised the sandwich to his mouth, intent on taking another bite, when he caught sight of her.

"Jean!" he cried, his eyes going wide as he scrambled to his feet, casting about in search of a safe place to set his sandwich. There was a brown paper bag from the cafe down the road crumpled up on the bench beside him, and he elected to simply drop the sandwich on top of it before racing towards them.

"Oh, you must be Mr. Beazley," the nurse said, grinning, and Jean and Lucien both stared at her, open-mouthed and shocked by the very suggestion, both of them so taken aback they couldn't even correct her. "Were you waiting out here this whole time? That's very sweet of you, Mr. Beazley, but I'm afraid it's not visiting hours just yet."

"Erm," Lucien said, looking rather as if he wished the ground would open up beneath his feet and swallow him whole, "I'm Doctor Blake. I'm Mrs. Beazley's physician."

Jean's cheeks burned, mortification swirling through her. From the moment it became clear that despite all his protests Lucien Blake intended to remain in Ballarat, in his father's house, with _Jean,_ folks had been whispering all sorts of things. That she was the reason he stayed, that it was disgraceful, them living together, both of them widowed, both of them still attractive for their age. No one had said any such thing when it was old Doctor Blake living in the house; it was as if they'd never dreamed for a moment that Jean Beazley would be interested in him, money or no. The younger Blake was a different story, though, and the imaginings had run rampant. Jean had done her best to hold her head high; she had done her best to behave exactly as she was expected to, and she had hoped that her ironclad sense of right and wrong would smother those rumors in time. People seemed to have lost interest, lately, but if this nurse happened to mention this little encounter to anyone else, if the nurse told her friends how lovely it was, Doctor Blake's concern for Mrs. Beazley, if those friends told _their_ friends, word of it might spread like wildfire, and all her careful courtesy would have been for nothing. Could he not _see_ how it looked, him hovering outside her hospital room? Could he not _see_ how much it hurt her, every time he gave people reason to whisper that she was after his money, that she was betraying her church and her morals and the memory of her dead husband for the sake of his strong arms? Did he really not see just how much damage he was doing?

"If it's all right, nurse, I'd like to speak with Mrs. Beazley. I could walk with her, if that's acceptable to you. Just down to the end of the corridor and back, yes?"

Jean wanted to stomp her foot; she wanted to cry. He never did things by half measures, and now he'd gone and arranged a private little walk for them, on top of everything else. Carrying her into the hospital, railroading the other physicians, never leaving her side, and now this. She was weak, and she was tired, and her heart was heavy with the knowledge of what she'd lost, and what further battles might lie ahead, and even if she did find some kind man who didn't seem to mind the damage she'd suffered how was he ever going to get near her, with Lucien stalking her every move like some terrible shadow? She'd wanted to get _away_ from him, to start her life afresh, to build new dreams for herself, and maybe, maybe love might have been one of those dreams, but all she had now was Lucien. Lucien's house, Lucien's professional care, Lucien's worried gaze. All her efforts had been for naught; she was trapped, now. No new job at the Royal Cross, no neat cottage with a little garden for her to tend, no hope of finding someone else to spend her time with; all her hopes had vanished. Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes, and she tried to wipe them away discreetly with one hand as the nurse gently took the other, lifted it from where it had rested on the nurse's arm and placed it on Lucien's broad forearm when he offered it. _Like my father, passing me off to Christopher at our wedding like he couldn't be rid of me fast enough,_ Jean thought, and her shoulders shook, slightly, as she tried to cover the sound of her distress with a little cough.

"Down the corridor and back," the nurse reminded Lucien. "And come fetch one of us once you get her back to bed."

 _It's just nerves,_ Jean tried to tell herself as Lucien covered her hand with his own where it rested against his arm, his eyes full of concern. _You're just tired. Things won't feel nearly so bad once you've had some sleep._

"Let's walk a bit, shall we?" Lucien said, and Jean just nodded, and let him lead her down the corridor.

After a moment of silence so terribly awkward every beat of her heart felt like a knife scraping across her skin, Lucien spoke again.

"I rang young Christopher. You were right, he was at work, but I spoke with Ruby. She's a charming girl."

Jean fought the urge to roll her eyes, and instead kept her gaze firmly rooted to the floor as she shuffled along beside him. Yes, Ruby was a charming girl. A sweet girl, really. But she was also flighty, and prone to moodiness, and Jean had worried from the moment she first met Ruby that young Christopher would spend the rest of his life catering to her whims. Having been married herself to a man some might have described as _tempestuous_ Jean had worried for Christopher's future happiness, worried that his own needs might not be met as he gave all of himself over to caring for Ruby. Her worry was interpreted as disapproval, however, and it had torn a rift between Jean and her oldest son that no amount of time seemed to mend.

"I'll ring her again soon, and let her know that you're all right."

"Am I, Lucien?" Jean asked him softly. "All right, I mean."

Though the nurses had been very kind to her they had also been rather tight lipped, and no one had as yet told Jean anything at all about the results of her surgery. Given that she was standing on her own two feet just now she supposed it was safe to assume that she wasn't in any immediate danger, but still, a bit more detail would have been welcome.

"Perfectly," Lucien answered at once. "The surgery went exactly as it was meant to. Doctor Nicholson assured me he encountered nothing at all unexpected, and while you will have a scar he expects your recovery to be smooth."

"Nothing at all unexpected," Jean mused. That could mean so many things. She was not a fool; she knew that the doctors had found her womb full of those terrible masses that might or might not be cancer, but they'd been _expecting_ that, and so she supposed that Lucien thought it didn't bear mentioning. What else had they been _expecting_ to find?

"Yes," Lucien said, and a world of understanding was contained within that one simple word; he had heard the worries she had not given voice. "There were a good many masses, Jean. Cysts, we call them. It's no wonder you were in pain. Doctor Nicholson took several samples, and he's sent them off to the lab. We should know in a few days if they're cancerous or not."

"Right," Jean said. She couldn't think of anything else to say. Perhaps now things would be better; once her body healed from this invasion she'd no longer be in pain, would no longer wonder what on earth was wrong with her. In a few days she'd know for certain, whether this would be the end of it, or whether further grief lay in store, more doctors, more needles. Right now, for this moment, she was better than she had been, better than she had expected to be, and she supposed she ought to be grateful for what she had, and leave the rest to keep for later.

They reached the end of the corridor, and slowly turned round again. People were bustling to and fro around them, and Jean couldn't help but wonder what they were thinking, seeing Doctor Blake and Mrs. Beazley like this. Doctor Blake, in just his waistcoat and shirtsleeves, his jacket forgotten, his tie askew, and Mrs. Beazley, with her hair gone limp and flat, her face pale and wrinkled above the hospital gown, shuffling along like she was already old and tired.

 _It's just the medications,_ she told herself. _You'll feel more yourself once you're out of this place._

She hoped, with everything she had, that it was true. She hoped, desperately, that on day soon she might not feel like her life was over already.

"I know this is difficult, Jean," Lucien said softly.

 _What do you know?_ She wanted to snap back, but she held her tongue. It was just the strain of the day making her waspish, she knew, and it wouldn't help matters to be cross with Lucien. He was, after all, only trying to help. Besides, maybe he did know. From her conversations with old Doctor Blake Jean had learned that Lucien had been held captive by the Japanese, during the war; Lucien never mentioned it himself, of course, but she'd seen the charcoal drawings in his notebook, bodies splayed out across empty roads, a Japanese soldier holding a human head by the hair, no body attached to it. Lucien knew a thing or two about loss, and pain; perhaps he'd understand this, too.

"But we're going to do everything we can for you."

 _We'll do everything we can to make you comfortable;_ Jean had heard doctors say that before, and she knew what it meant. It meant _there's nothing we can do but try to make it a little easier, while you slip away._ Jean could feel it, could feel her life, her future, slipping from her fingertips, but she would not let them go, not without a fight. And if Lucien would only join her in that fight, then maybe...maybe one day everything would be all right.

They reached her room once more, and Lucien held the door for her, walked with her to her bedside and helped her ease herself gently down.

"I'll go and fetch the nurse," he said. "You should try to get some rest, Jean. I'll ring Ruby, and then Mattie and I will come back together during visiting hours."

The thought of closing her eyes and letting the troubles of this day fade away was very appealing to Jean, and so, too, was the thought of seeing Mattie. The girl always cheered her; they had looked after one another, while old Doctor Blake was failing, and Jean never would have stayed on with Lucien so long if it hadn't been for Mattie.

"Thank you, Lucien," she said.

He looked almost comically pleased at that, and Jean's heart softened towards him somewhat. Yes, he was rash, _yes,_ he had a reckless disregard for propriety and both their reputations, and _yes_ he was unpredictable and difficult to manage, but he meant well, and any time she praised him he grinned like a schoolboy let loose in a sweetie shop. He was trying his best, she knew he was, and she could not ask for more.

"You're welcome, Jean," he told her earnestly. "I'll go and fetch the nurse."

And so he did, and by the time the nurse came back to Jean's room she found Mrs. Beazley lying back on the bed, already fast asleep.


	13. Chapter 13

Though Lucien would have happily spent the rest of the day keeping vigilant watch over Jean's care the truth was she didn't need him, and he _was_ needed elsewhere. There were patients to see, and reports to submit to Matthew, and Mattie to be looking after. Jean was resting, under the watchful eye of the nurses, and there was nothing Lucien could do to help her now, not really. There was nothing to do but wait, and the waiting grated on his nerves, left him feeling peevish and useless in almost equal measure.

That day, the first day, Lucien returned to the hospital in the evening to check in on Jean and collect Mattie, who had been sitting vigil by her bedside during the brief window allowed for visiting hours. Jean had shooed them off home, good-natured but tired, and they'd stopped in at the chippie on their way. Fish and chips and a healthy measure of whiskey worked wonders to soothe Lucien's nerves that first night, but as dawn broke the next day he found himself wondering, yet again, what they were going to do without Jean.

Breakfast he could manage; on that second morning of their fortnight without Jean Mattie didn't even attempt to cook, and Lucien found himself standing at the stove, frying up a few pieces of bacon and scrambling some eggs while Mattie laid out plates and coffee for them both. It was dreadfully domestic, and he supposed that could be their new routine, starting each morning together in the kitchen, with Lucien standing in for Jean at the stove. But what about the surgery? Who would answer the telephone when he and Mattie were both out? Who would manage the appointments? He could make a sandwich for lunch, tuck an apple in his pocket, but what about their suppers? And who would do the laundry, and the shopping? A fortnight suddenly seemed like a terribly long time.

 _I've taken her for granted,_ that was the thought that echoed through his mind as he carried himself off to the hospital to look in on her. Her wan smile did little to settle his nerves, but he had no sooner bid her good morning than a nurse came to fetch him, telling him that Matthew Lawson had rung for him, and he was needed at the station.

 _Go, Lucien,_ Jean had told him. _I'm perfectly fine. Don't worry about me._

But of course he did worry. All through that day, while he stood next to Matthew looking down at a dead body found in the lane behind the florists', while he took Mrs. Clasby's blood pressure, while he scarfed down his sandwich and his apple alone at the kitchen table, he worried for Jean. The surgery appeared to have gone just as well as he could have hoped, but they weren't out of the weeds just yet. There was still the matter of the tests Doctor Nicholson had run, still the matter of those cysts they'd found, and what the lab might have to say about them. The answer to those questions seemed to hang just above his neck like the blade of a guillotine, ready to drop at any moment, but his hands were tied, and he could do nothing but wait.

Around four o'clock that afternoon he sat alone in the surgery, reviewing the notes he'd made on his last patient of the day and trying not to brood on that devil called cancer, and the damage it threatened to do to Jean, and to himself. He was planning to venture back to the hospital soon, to look in on Jean and once again collect Mattie, but he wanted to give the two ladies a chance to chat privately with one another first, and so it was that he was entirely alone in the house when a sharp knock rang out against the front door.

He looked up from his papers, frowning. He could almost hear Jean calling out _I'll get it,_ could almost hear the sound of her smart shoes clicking across the kitchen floor. But of course Jean was not there, and would not be again, not for some time. There was no one else to do it, and so Lucien hauled himself to his feet, and went off to answer the door himself.

When he swung the door wide he found two women waiting for him there, two women he'd never seen before in his life, each of them carrying a large wicker hamper.

"Good afternoon," he said, confused. He wasn't expecting any patients, wasn't expecting anyone at all, and he couldn't fathom who those women were, or what they were doing on his doorstep. The one on the right was a bit older, her severe hairstyle flecked with grey, her dress dowdy and a decade out of fashion. The one on the left looked younger than Jean, dark-haired and pretty, and _her_ dress was very much _in_ fashion. They could not have been more different from one another in appearance; for a moment he wondered if he was facing a friend of Mattie's and her maiden aunt.

"Good afternoon, Doctor Blake," the older lady said. "We haven't met; I'm Evelyn Toohey, and this is Celia Lloyd."

The names meant nothing to him, but the older woman was looking at him as if he should have recognized them on sight, as if she was somehow disappointed by his apparent confusion.

"Jean's a member of our sewing circle," young Mrs. Lloyd said, shooting her compatriot an exasperated look. "We went to visit her in hospital this morning, and she mentioned that she was worried about you and Nurse O'Brien, without her here to look after you."

The reason for the wicker hampers was now readily apparent, though Lucien couldn't fathom how they'd learned of Jean's condition in time to visit her so soon; it wasn't as if he'd told anyone. But word traveled fast in a town like Ballarat, and everyone knew Mrs. Beazley. Perhaps someone else had taken it upon themselves to spread the news, and now her friends had come to visit the family, as people do in times of strife.

"We've brought some stew," Mrs. Toohey said, indicating the basket she held. "And there's bread, and a pie, and a few other things."

"Do come inside," Lucien said, stepping back and holding the door wide. "I can't thank you ladies enough," he added as they walked past him, each of them surreptitiously eyeing their surroundings as though they'd never set foot in the house before and were trying to look at everything all at once. And perhaps they hadn't ever had cause to visit before, he realized; it wasn't Jean's house, after all. It was where she lived, and where she worked, but it wasn't _hers_ , and he could not recall her having ever had a personal visitor there, not even the ladies from her sewing circle. For some reason that thought made him terribly sad.

"We've managed all right," he said, closing the door behind them and then leading them both off towards the kitchen. "But we do miss Mrs. Beazley."

"We are praying for her speedy recovery," Mrs. Toohey told him piously. Prayer was a treatment of last resort in Lucien's book; he had long since stopped believing that anyone was listening to his prayers, but there was no need to get into a debate on religion with Mrs. Toohey right there in the corridor.

The moment they stepped into the kitchen Mrs. Toohey and Mrs. Lloyd made a beeline for the counter; they placed their baskets there and immediately began unpacking them, stowing items in the refrigerator as they went.

"There should be enough here to tide you two over for a few days," Mrs. Lloyd said as she danced back and forth.

"I daresay there's a good many people who will be stopping by while Jean's in hospital. She is so well-loved in the church, and she's always the first to help in times of need. We all just want to do the same for her," Mrs. Toohey added.

That's what they did, those people who went to Jean's church. Though Lucien objected to many of the precepts of organized religion he had no quarrel with the people themselves; the people, he knew, were by and large just doing their best. They looked after one another, took meals to those suffering from grief or illness, visited fellow parishioners in hospital, raised funds for charities and tried to ease suffering where they found it. The church was community, fondness and care and understanding, as much as any group of humans, subject to human foibles, could be. There would be gossippers and instigators in any collection of people, and Lucien knew he possessed enough contradictions in his nature to be wary of condemning hypocrisy in others. These ladies, friends of Jean, had taken it upon themselves to make sure that he was fed, and they had done this thing for _her_ sake, for the sake of her friendship, and the gesture touched his heart, and left him all but speechless. He wanted to protest, wanted to say that he didn't require anyone's charity, but the truth was he was rather in need of a bit of charity, just then, and he knew that their intentions were good, and so could not bring himself to disparage them.

"I'm going to see Jean this evening," he said, "and I'll tell her that you stopped by. I know she'll be touched by your kindness."

"She'd do the same for us," Mrs. Lloyd told him. The ladies had worked with remarkable efficiency, and already their baskets were empty. "She will be all right, won't she, Doctor Blake? She didn't want to talk about whatever's wrong, and we'd never push, but we do worry about her."

It might have seemed a simple question to Mrs. Lloyd, but the truth was Lucien had no idea how to answer her. _Would_ Jean be all right? He had no idea. Not now, not yet, not until the test results came back, and he learned once and for all what the true cause of her malady was. It might be that Jean was the furthest thing in the world from all right; then again, it might be that in a fortnight this would all become no more than a hazy memory.

In the end he settled on obfuscation, rather than answers. After all, the details of Jean's condition were not his to divulge, and he didn't want to cause distress among her friends until he knew for certain that it was warranted.

"She's healing well from surgery," he said carefully. "She'll stay under observation in hospital and we'll know more soon, but for now she's doing very well."

"We are so glad to hear it, Doctor Blake. And we'll come by to see her as often as we can." With the baskets empty Mrs. Toohey seemed ready to leave; there was something anxious in her expression, as if she felt herself a trespasser in his home, and were it not for Mattie needing him to come and fetch her he might well have invited the ladies to stay for supper, just to try to put them both at ease. "I'll come back here on Friday morning and collect the laundry, Doctor Blake, if that's all right with you. I'll have it back to you on Saturday."

"Oh, really, there's no need-" Lucien started to protest, somewhat put off by the thought of someone else washing his unmentionables. It had been hard enough letting Jean do that work even when he paid her for it, but Mrs. Toohey was implacable.

"I've already promised Mrs. Beazley that I would," she said firmly. "I'm Father Morton's housekeeper, and I'll be washing his laundry as well, it'll be no trouble to do yours, too. And if there's anything else we can do to help, please, just let us know."

Lucien wanted to tell them that they'd done too much already, but there was no way to say such a thing kindly, and discretion was the better part of valor. He had no choice but to accept, and he knew it.

"Well, thank you both," he said earnestly. "I really do appreciate it, and I know Jean will rest easier, knowing you've both been so kind."

That seemed to settle matters for the ladies; he escorted them back out of the house, and they both wished him well, and promised to look in on him again soon. The moment he was alone once more Lucien leaned back against the door, wrestling with the strangeness of it all. For so long he had hated this place, disdained it, wished to be anywhere else in the world but in dreary old Ballarat, but now...now it was hard to hate a place that could cultivate such kindness. From the moment he first returned he had felt himself a stranger in this town, with very little in the way of connections, but with each passing day his life seemed to fill with people, and with purpose. There was Matthew now, a true friend once more, as he had been in the dim days of Lucien's childhood. There was Mattie to look after, and Danny to laugh with, and Jean to worry over, but there was so much more besides. Now there was Mrs. Toohey and Mrs. Lloyd, those sweet ladies who had taken it upon themselves to make sure that he was fed, that he would have clean clothes to wear, that he would not suffer for Jean's absence. In many ways it felt less as if they were assisting her with completing her duties as his housekeeper and more as if...more as if they were trying to look after her family. As if they knew that Lucien and Mattie belonged to Jean, bound by ties more intimate than the pay he gave to her every week. Though he had never met the sewing circle ladies, though he had not stepped foot inside Sacred Heart in thirty years except to attend his father's funeral, they counted him among their number. He _belonged_ , now.

Because of Jean. Jean who kept his house tidy, and tended the flowers in the garden, and consoled his patients, and kept him sane. Jean who was suffering, Jean whose health, whose very future, rested in his hands.

If he had been the praying sort he would have prayed, then. He would have offered thanks, for the grace of friendship, and he would have begged intercession for Jean, Jean who deserved so much better than the hand that she had been dealt. Lucien Blake was not a praying man, however, and so he only sighed, and rummaged in the little bowl on the entry table, looking for his keys. He needed to see Jean, to tell her what her friends had done, and he needed to drive Mattie home, and then they needed to sit together and eat the stew that the sewing circle ladies had brought. Perhaps they would not feel so distant from Jean, eating a meal that had been prepared by hands that loved her. Perhaps this fortnight of waiting would not be so unbearable, if love was there to carry them through.


	14. Chapter 14

"I'm sure you've got much more important things to do than fuss over me," Jean told him, but she was smiling as she said it. Though she hated the thought of being subject to anyone's pity, the truth was she had been lonesome and bored sitting all in the hospital these last three days, and she was grateful for every bit of company she could get. Especially when that company took the form of Lucien Blake, and two fresh sandwiches and two bright red apples in a brown paper bag.

"Nonsense," he said, and he was smiling, too. "If I wasn't here I'd be eating lunch at home by myself. No sense in us both eating alone, if we don't have to."

The lunch he'd brought was simple fare, but those two sandwiches had been made by his own hands, those two apples chosen by Lucien himself, for them to share together, and Jean was touched by his kindness. Perhaps he'd only come to soothe his own lonesomeness, but he was soothing her in the process, and she found herself thinking, yet again, what a strange man he was. He could be arrogant, and distractible, and selfish, but he had made a sandwich just for her, and brought it all this way, so that they might eat together.

"You and Mattie are getting along all right, aren't you?" she asked him. Lucien had mentioned eating lunch at home alone, and those simple words, so casually said, had led her to an unexpected realization. They almost never ate alone, the pair of them. Jean was up with the sun, making breakfast, pouring tea, rousing the whole house and making sure Lucien and Mattie got where they needed to be. Come lunchtime her charges would make their way home, looking to be fed; oh, sometimes one or another of them might be called away at that time of day, but usually there was at least one other warm body at the table with Jean. Danny dropped round, sometimes, when he could. And though the younger Blake had initially balked at the rigidity of Jean's daily schedule he had settled down, a bit, in recent weeks, and her table was full again come evening. Only Jean had been gone for days now, and she worried about how Mattie and Lucien were getting on without her. The fact that before this calamity she had been preparing to leave them anyway was not lost on her, but now that she had departed from the house - after a fashion - she couldn't help but feel as if she'd abandoned them, somehow. Lucien was hardly the domestic sort, and he and Mattie both needed looking after, and Jean wasn't convinced they could do that for one another.

"We are. Someone from the church has come by every day. I've had to resort to inviting Matthew and Danny round for dinner, just to help us eat it all. And that Mrs. Toohey is determined to keep the house tidy in your absence."

"Well, thank goodness for Mrs. Toohey," Jean said. She was teasing him, and they both knew it, and they both smiled, and took bites of their sandwiches, and Jean tried not to think how strange it was, to be sharing a meal and a pleasant conversation with this man under these circumstances.

"Those people love you, Jean. It's...wonderful, really."

Jean hummed, but did not answer. Yes, they loved her now. They loved Mrs. Beazley, loved her for the flowers she arranged in the church and the meals she made and the dresses she sewed, loved her for the way she sang, loved her for being everything she ought, but Mrs. Beazley had not forgotten how they'd whispered about Miss Randall, all those many years before. Young and scared, rushed into marriage in a feckless attempt to hide an illicit pregnancy, that same community had sneered at her, and laughed at her homemade dress. Oh, no baby had come, and they had replaced their disdain with pity, and in time forgotten all about it, but Jean had not forgotten. It was a delicate balancing act, keeping up appearances. She'd managed it so far, but would all those people have been so kind to Lucien, if Mrs. Beazley had been anything less than perfect? And how many of them stopped in to check in on Lucien, not out of a sense of concern, but out of curiosity, wanting to catch a glimpse of this man who had become the talk of the town, and threatened Mrs. Beazley's sterling reputation?

"Jean?"

Perhaps she had not schooled her expression well enough to hide her tumultuous thoughts from him, for Lucien was watching her now with worry in his gaze.

"Thank you, Lucien," she said, deciding that changing topics would be best for now. "This was very kind of you, and I'm grateful."

"It's just a sandwich, Jean," he said bashfully. They both knew he'd brought her rather a lot more than a sandwich, and Jean was grateful to him for more than just feeding her.

"Now tell me," she said, reaching for one of the apples. "What have I missed?"

Lucien laughed, and launched into a recitation of the patients he'd seen and the current state of affairs with the police, and Jean tried to soak in the normalcy of it, talking with Lucien about his life. There was nothing at all normal about their position, Jean lying in that hospital bed and Lucien sitting beside her, but the conversation felt familiar still, somehow, and Jean enjoyed it immensely. At least at until there came a sharp knock on the door, and Doctor Nicholson stepped into view.

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Beazley," he said cordially. "Doctor Blake."

"Good afternoon, Geoffrey," Lucien answered for both of them.

Jean had seen little of Doctor Nicholson during her time in hospital. He popped in every morning to check her wound and review the notes in the patient file tucked at the end of her bed, but he did not have much to say to her, and Jean didn't try to push him. Jean knew there was no sense pestering him about the results of her tests; when he knew something, he'd tell her. He'd said they'd likely have her test results by the end of the week, however, and today was Friday, and he had come to her unexpectedly, and dread settled low in Jean's gut.

"Might I speak with you in private, Doctor Blake?" Nicholson said.

Lucien shot Jean a strained, worried look, but she nodded, told him silently that she would not hold it against him if he chose to speak to her surgeon without her present. The decision had already been made, that Lucien would act as Jean's physician, and he had every right to hear whatever Doctor Nicholson had to say. And Jean knew, too, that whatever it was Lucien would share it with her; he took patient care very seriously, despite his other shortcomings, and he had not kept her in the dark as her other doctors had done.

"Back in a tick," he murmured softly to Jean, and then he rose and departed with Doctor Nicholson, the door closing softly behind them.

Alone, now, the fear came crashing over Jean in waves. Her hands began to tremble, and tears blurred her vision. She stared blankly ahead, her fingers fidgeting with the seam of the thin blanket that covered her, and tried very hard to breathe.

It could only mean one thing, she thought, Doctor Nicholson taking Lucien into the corridor like that. If he only wanted to brief Lucien on her condition he could have done it right there in the room; Jean already knew everything there was to know about how she was coming along after the surgery. Something must have happened, she thought; there must have been some new development that brought Doctor Nicholson back to her door after his customary time, when he'd already been in to see her once today already. It was Friday, and he'd said they'd know by the end of the week whether or not the masses in her womb were cancerous; it didn't take a genius to work out that he likely had the test results back.

But he had asked to speak to Lucien in private, and that confirmed it, for Jean. If she was not suffering from cancer she was certain Doctor Nicholson would have told her at once; there was no need for delicacy, when delivering good news. Physicians did so love to celebrate positive developments, and she imagined that if he brought kind tidings he would have announced them at once, and let them all soak in the relief together. He hadn't, though. He had asked to speak to Lucien alone.

 _He wants Lucien to break it to me gently,_ she thought. _He thinks it'll hurt less, if it comes from a friend._

And perhaps he was right about that; perhaps it would be marginally easier to hear this terrible news from Lucien than from a man she barely knew. Perhaps he was doing her a kindness; perhaps he was doing _Lucien_ a kindness. Perhaps he had been motivated by professional respect; perhaps he wanted to tell Lucien man-to-man, and give him a chance to process the news before he had to face Jean. Under the circumstances, it was probably the right choice, but Jean could not be grateful for it. Right now, for these few terrible moments, Jean was utterly alone, and staring into the abyss.

_Cancer._

Cancer meant months of treatment, and weakness, months when she could not look after herself, let alone perform her duties. It meant dependency, and despondency, and with very little hope to carry her through. It would mean returning to Lucien's house not as a caretaker but as one in need of care, not supporting him but instead relying on him. It meant a sickbed, and the worried stares of her neighbors, the loss of dignity and independence, as far as Jean was concerned. It meant fear, and grief, and the word tasted like bile in her mouth.

Oh, perhaps she'd read too much into things. Perhaps Nicholson only wanted to talk to Lucien about the next meeting of the hospital board. That hope was too thin to bear the weight of Jean's heart, however, and it frayed with each passing second. She was _certain_ in a way that seemed almost prophetic; she felt like an oracle, staring into smoke, knowing the truth on some primal level that had nothing at all to do with logic and everything to do with _seeing_. She could _see_ it, the truth of the insidious beast that swirled within her, ravenous and destructive.

Like a film on the silver screen at the Rex she could _see_ it; could see herself, thin and tired, lying alone in her little bed in her room at Lucien's, her hand pale against the coverlet, needing Mattie's help just to get to the loo. She could see the flowers wilting in the sunroom, and the pile of empty bottles in Lucien's desk growing bigger by the day. She could see Jack and Christopher, dressed in their best black suits, standing by an open grave. She could see-

The door swung open, then, and Lucien stepped once more into her room. Nicholson was no longer with him; he stood alone, and closed the door gently behind him, and when he raised his head to look at her she saw her own fate reflected in his eyes. There was such sorrow in him, and he made no move to hide it. He did not need to speak; his face spoke for him.

"Well, then," Jean said, a bit thickly. "That's that, I suppose."

"I'm so sorry, Jean," Lucien croaked; his voice broke on that word _sorry,_ and if she had not been feeling so wretched herself she might have wondered at how invested he seemed to be in her well-being, how he seemed almost as shattered as she at this news.

Jean wanted to tell him that he shouldn't be sorry. She wanted to tell him it wasn't his fault. She wanted to ask him what came next, wanted to put on a brave face, wanted to make a plan, and not allow herself to be bowled over by grief. But when she opened her mouth no words escaped her; instead she gasped once, softly, and Lucien rushed to stand beside her. He reached out as if he meant to take her hand, but she pulled it away before he could; if he touched her now she was certain she'd fall to pieces, and she could not bear to do such a thing now, in front of him.

"Do you think I might have a few minutes to myself, please?" she asked, her voice trembling with the effort of keeping her tears at bay.

Lucien looked like he wanted to protest, but to his credit he only nodded.

"Of course," he said. "I'll come back soon."

And with that he left her, and the moment the door closed behind him Jean let the weeping take her.


	15. Chapter 15

The whiskey wasn't helping.

Not that it ever did; it didn't, really. It didn't _help,_ in the sense of _help_ being a means of improving one's circumstances. It sometimes _helped_ in that it made him feel briefly jolly, or briefly so discombobulated that he quite forgot what had made him glum in the first place, or that it made him feel so positively wretched that when he purged the last of it from his system he felt somehow cleansed, but it didn't _help._ It didn't take away the pain, or the grief, or the misery, even for a moment. It just made things...hazy.

Only tonight, the haziness was not a blessing. Lucien had drunk rather more than was wise, after spending the day at the hospital, organizing Jean's treatment with Doctor Nicholson and trying to offer Jean his reassurances before coming home to an aggressively bland meal provided by Evelyn Toohey. He had sat behind his desk and drunk with all the grim determination of a man for whom unconsciousness would be a blessing, but darkness had not come for him. Instead the world swayed precariously beneath his feet, and every time he closed his eyes he saw Jean as she had been at the hospital, pale-faced, her lower lip trembling, and yet trying, so damnably hard, to be strong.

She had wept, after he told her the news. Well, he hadn't _told_ her, as such; he had simply walked into the room, and she had divined the truth with one look at his face. Jean had asked for privacy, and Lucien had granted it to her, had stood in the corridor and listened to her weeping all alone on the other side of the door, and cursed himself. Perhaps he should have stayed, then. Perhaps despite her request what she needed more than solitude was to know that she would not carry this burden alone. But Lucien had felt himself uncomfortable and at a loss for words, and like a coward he had fled. He had listened to her weeping, and done nothing to stop it.

But then, she hadn't wanted him to see. Despite the faith she'd placed in him regarding her physical care she did not trust him with her heart. And why should she? He asked himself grimly. He sometimes smoked in the parlor just because it irritated her, and he was sometimes short with her, and he never behaved as she expected him to, and he had brought nothing but chaos to her door. It was no wonder, really, that she had wanted to leave him, that she did not want him to see her weep. He had not earned such trust; but then again, he had not wanted it, before now. He had thought her judgmental, and staid, and provincial, and small-minded. He had thought he might be happier, without her fussing over his faults.

What he wouldn't give to hear her chide him now! Jean, force of nature that she was, fierce and strong, had been laid low, and her very life was now in peril, and the knowledge of the danger she faced had set off a roaring in his mind that left him deafened and dazed. It would be up to Lucien to save her, Lucien with his hands that trembled if he spent too long in a small room, Lucien with his hidden whiskey bottles and his gnawing grief.

She would be in hospital another ten days, and then she would come home, would deliver herself into his hands. Things would not be now as they had been before; Jean would be a patient, and he rather imagined she'd be quite a difficult one. He had never observed idleness in her; even when they sat down together to watch the quiz shows her hands were busy with knitting. But she would need to _rest_ , not to be rushing about the house on her feet all day, and he imagined she might resent him for telling her she could not go about her life as normal. _She can hate me forever,_ he thought, _and it will be worth it if only she lives._

He thought about Jean's little bed upstairs, and the pink flowers scaling the wallpaper, and the pink flowers embroidered on her coverlet, and he downed his whiskey in one gulp with tears gathering in the corners of his eyes. Such a small life, he thought, with only one little room to call her own in a house that did not belong to her. It would be painful for her, he thought, to be trapped up there for months, so far removed from the life of the house, so far from any well-wishers who might come to call. All alone at the top of the stairs like a maiden held captive in a tower by a terrible dragon. Lucien was no white knight, and he knew it, but still he meant to save her.

An idea came to him as he refilled his whiskey; clutching the glass in his left hand he reached for one of his desk drawers with the right, and when he pulled it open he found what he sought at once. A big brass key on a faded satin ribbon, tucked away next to a photograph of his mother. Perhaps, he thought, Jean did not need to be imprisoned by her illness. Perhaps there was more he could do for her besides.

He snatched up the key and rose on unsteady legs, bouncing off the furniture as he made his way from his office out into the house. The doors were just there, doors so long kept closed, and god only knew what lay behind them, if mice or ghosts or both had made their home there. For a moment he paused, and pressed his palm against one of those doors, as if he could through touch alone divine the truth of that room, and what lay within. He could almost hear the tinkling bell sound of his mother's laugh, haunting him, calling him. The studio was a world unto itself, forgotten by time, a mausoleum sealed up and untended for forty years. Perhaps it was folly, to open those doors now. Then again, perhaps one grief could cancel out another.

Lucien took one deep breath, and then set the key into the lock. The mechanism was well-oiled, despite its disuse - Jean did think of everything - and the key turned easily, and then the doors swung open, and then Lucien stepped inside, and lost himself to time.

There were still brushes sitting in a cup on one of the worktables. A tarp had been flung over a half-finished painting, the canvas still propped up on an easel. The furniture had been covered with sheets of plastic, and dust motes swirled through the air with every step he took, alive and electrified by the presence of a living person for the first time in so long. He wandered slowly through the studio, the vaulted ceiling lost in shadows above him, memories biting at him like angry dogs. He might have wept; he could not say. Time left him, then, as he walked through that place, stalked by thoughts of death, but he was saved from his own melancholy by the sudden sound of a voice, a living voice, calling out behind him.

"Lucien?"

He spun on his heel and found Mattie standing in the doorway, wrapped in a pink robe with her arms crossed over her chest and a worried look on her face. No doubt she'd heard him banging around, and come to investigate, and he felt just a bit sheepish about having disturbed her sleep.

"Is everything all right?"

"Yes," he lied. "Yes, of course. Come and see." He gestured vaguely to the room around him, and Mattie stepped forward warily, as if she feared him. The thought wounded him.

"Jean said this was your mother's studio," the girl told him.

"It was," he answered.

"She says no one's been in here since…"

Forty years since his mother died, and still no one seemed to want to acknowledge the truth of her passing out loud. His father certainly never wanted to talk about it, and now Thomas Blake was dead, too, and there was no one left for Lucien to ask about her, this woman he had loved so fiercely, and lost so long ago.

"No, dad closed the doors the day she died, and never opened them again." Thomas's heart had closed that day, too, and never opened for his son again; he'd sent Lucien away a bare few days after her death, and losing both his parents in such a short span of time had shattered the boy in ways that still pained his heart now that he was a man.

"I was thinking, Mattie," he said, setting his whiskey glass down on the mantle above the fireplace and tucking his hands in his pockets. "Jean's bedroom is all the way upstairs, and it's rather small. I've a feeling she might get a bit of cabin fever, being stuck in there so long. And she has to share a bathroom with you, and well, at the risk of sounding crass, she might find that unpleasant, when the side effects of the medication kick in."

"You want to move her down here." It wasn't a question, but still Lucien rushed to explain herself.

"Well, see, this way she can have a bit more space to herself. She can move from the bed to the sofa, here, if she's feeling strong enough, without having to exert herself too much. She'll have her own private bathroom. And if anyone pops in to see her, she won't have far to go. And the kitchen is just there, it would be easier for her to join us for supper, if she wants to, without worrying about the stairs. And if she needs me, she can just shout or ring a bell, and I'll be right there. I can look in on her much more easily if she's down here."

That had worried him, as he began to think about Jean's approaching convalescence. What if she grew terribly ill in the night, too ill to manage the stairs? What if the trek from the bedroom to the bathroom was too much for her? What if she _needed_ him, and he was too far away to reach her? He could not bear the thought of it, Jean alone and in pain, and him sleeping peacefully downstairs, heedless. The studio was vast, with two workrooms and its own private bath. They could set her bed beneath the windows - he imagined she'd enjoy the sunlight, and the view of the garden - and they could make a very nice parlor for her, so that she did not have to spend every minute in bed, and...and he could look after her, properly.

"I think it's a wonderful idea," Mattie told him, and Lucien's shoulders slumped in relief. He hadn't expected her to disagree, exactly, but he had been worried that he might be overstepping.

"I was thinking," he said, "I might ask Danny and some of the lads from the station to come round and help me with the furniture. And the sewing circle ladies might be able to organize a few people from the church to come and help with the clean up. Do you think you might have some friends who'd be willing to pitch in?"

"Leave it with me," Mattie told him, grinning. "We can clean, and paint, and you can help us sort out what of your mother's things we ought to keep."

"We could bring all of Jean's things down from upstairs," Lucien took up the thread, excited now that the wheels were in motion. "Her bed and her furniture and things, so it still feels like home. I imagine we'll need a new sofa and a few other things for the parlor here," he gestured to the area around the fireplace, "but we could make it quite nice, don't you think?"

"I'll start rounding people up tomorrow," Mattie told him. "Ten days isn't a very long time."

No, it wasn't much time at all, but if Danny and Ned and Bill and Matthew and Mattie and Evelyn Toohey and Celia Lloyd and a few others all joined their hands to his, it could be done. They could turn these rooms that had for so languished dusty and forgotten into a bright, beautiful suite where Jean might feel at ease. He could not take this sickness from her, but he could treat her, and do his best to make her comfortable, and the work in the studio would give him something to do with his hands besides reach for the whiskey glass. It would give him a sense of purpose while Jean recovered in hospital, would make him feel _useful,_ and that was something he sorely needed at present.

"Right," he said, grinning. "Thank you, Mattie. We'll start tomorrow."

She offered him a smile that seemed strangely sad. "We will," she promised. "But first, bed."

Mattie reached for his shoulders and gave him a gentle push, and he laughed and let her lead him out the door. Somehow, that conversation had helped him a great deal more than the whiskey ever had.


	16. Chapter 16

It started the moment they pulled into the drive. The cloying, sympathetic attempts to treat her as if she were made of glass.

"You wait right there," Lucien said to her as the car lumbered to a stop, as he killed the ignition and went to go open the boot and fetch her bag. Jean huffed and ignored him completely, stepped from the car on her own two feet. It had been a fortnight since the operation and though her body was still tender and she had to be careful about how she carried herself she was more than capable of getting out of the car under her own steam.

It didn't stop there, though; with her bag dangling from one hand Lucien reached for her with the other, as if he meant to steady her, to guide her into the house she'd called home for more than a decade now, as if she were too feeble to mount the two stairs leading up the veranda herself; Jean shot him a murderous look and snatched her hand away, marched off with her chin held high and her shoulders set.

She had known, of course, that he would be like this. She had known and in the knowing had felt fear begin to simmer within her. What would become of her, when everyone around her treated her as some pitiful charity case, when all her strength and independence were eroded, and no one listened to her any more? No one _listened_ to patients, Jean had seen more than enough during her fortnight in hospital to prove that truth to her. The patients were tutted over and cared for but their words fell upon the doctors and nurses like raindrops on the sea, having no effect whatsoever. And she was to be a _patient,_ now, in her own home; would Lucien listen to her, when she told him it was time for him to go to bed or time for him to come and eat, when he had taken control of her care? Or would he just insist she needed to _rest_ , and ignore her pleas for normalcy? If his behavior thus far was any indication, they were in for an uncomfortable transition.

"Why don't we go and have a nice cup of tea, eh?" He caught up with her as she reached the front door, and only just managed to catch it before she did, swinging it open and stepping aside to allow her entry first.

"I think I'd like to unpack my bag, and then I think I'll have a proper bath," she told him. _A nice cup of tea indeed!_ Likely that's all he thought she was capable of, now, sitting around sipping tea, as if the organs the doctors had removed and the cancer they'd found within had left her no more than a shell of her former self, as if they had taken all her strength along with her womb. Well, Jean felt fit as a fiddle, if a bit...well... _scummy_ from the hospital, and she was in no mood for a cup of tea. It was too late in the day to worry about supper; Lucien and Mattie had assured her that the ladies from Sacred Heart had kept the house well supplied with food, and if she did not need to cook then she fully intended to spend a few minutes looking after herself. She was in the mood to stand inside her own bedroom, to touch her own things. She was in the mood for a moment of contemplation, looking at the old photographs on her dressing table, and then she was in the mood for a nice long soak with her favorite lavender soap.

Lucien's face fell when she announced her plans; he looked almost sheepish, as if he had been caught out doing something he ought not have been.

"Right," he said. "About that. Erm." He was stammering, a bit, the way he sometimes did when she caught him drunk in the surgery in the middle of the night, and she couldn't understand it, really, when all she'd said was that she wanted a few minutes to herself. But then he took a deep breath, as if he'd reached a decision, and he spoke again more decisively.

"Come with me, please, Jean."

That was curious; a moment before he'd wanted her to sit and have a cup of tea, and now he was leading her down the corridor towards the parlor. Jean followed after him, confused; _what on earth is he doing?_

"I've been thinking about how we'll handle your treatment, now that you're home, and I really do think this is for the best."

Before Jean could even ask the question they'd reached the doors of his mother's studio; Lucien, still holding her bag in one hand, opened the doors with the other, and then stepped aside, motioning for Jean to go before him. She did, but even as she walked through those doors her heart sank as the realization of what it was he intended struck her head-on.

Jean had never seen the studio before. The doors had not once been opened, in all the long years she'd been living in the Blake house; Thomas had been religious in his dedication to the inviolability of the studio, and Lucien had seemed utterly disinterested. But _oh_ , she was seeing it now, and the seeing of it set a strange welter of emotions coursing through her.

The studio was a grand, strange thing. _Thomas's folly,_ the old timers had called it. There were few now living who remembered when Thomas Blake had built this house, but the whispers about it had been passed along to the younger generations. Fresh from his grand tour with his marvelous French bride on his arm Thomas Blake had sunk a fortune into the building of this house. Three bedrooms upstairs, and two downstairs, a fine garden, fenced and rimmed with shrubs, the drive sealed by a heavy iron gate despite the fact that he lived in town. The sunroom, full of bright and beautiful things, the sitting room with its fashionable sofas and the parlor with its grand piano, the kitchen kitted out in all the latest and greatest appliances. No less than _three_ indoor bathrooms, when plenty of folks had none at all. And then the studio, built for his beloved wife.

The studio was situated at the back of the house. The second story did not extend across it; instead its vaulted ceilings rose high, all the way up to the roof, painted with a fresco like the ones Thomas and his young bride had seen in Italy. The studio itself was two rooms; one had been a workroom, and one a parlor of sorts, and it boasted its very own bathroom, in part so that Genevieve could have fresh water close to hand to clean her brushes, and in part so that she could have her own private domain to retreat to when her mood turned dark, as it so often did. The old timers had talked about that, too, her moods; they said she was _very French_ in a knowing sort of way, and Thomas said nothing about it at all. Altogether the studio was strange, and not at all the sort of space ordinarily included in home architecture, and that Thomas had gone to such great expense to not only allow his wife her own private domain but also to allow her room to pursue her frivolous hobbies had been counted foolish indeed.

And then she died, and Thomas would look on it no more, and it had languished, haunted and unused. Jean had wondered many times over the years how filthy it must be, whether some small creatures had burrowed into it; she sometimes pressed her ear to the door, and listened for the sound of skittering feet. In the heartbeat after Lucien opened the doors Jean had steeled herself, expecting to see a shambles of a room, but what she found was something else entirely.

The studio had been completely restored. The bare wood floors shone brightly, as if they had been recently polished, and the walls had been painted a pale, cheery shade of yellow. A new leather sofa had been set before the old stone fireplace, and a thick white rug had been laid in front of it. Lamps glowed from end tables, perhaps salvaged from the wreckage of the studio itself, and bookshelves stood sentinel along the walls. As Jean turned slowly on her heel, taking it all in, she found herself compelled by the vision of the doorway to her right, leading to the second of the studio's rooms. Her heart called her there, and so she went, with Lucien following after, silently.

The second room had been painted white, and one wall had been covered with a bright floral wallpaper. New white drapes hung across the wide windows, and a bed had been laid in front of them. Only it wasn't just a bed; it was _her_ bed. Her bed, her coverlet, her dressing table, her mirror, her wardrobe. All of her things were _here,_ not in her little room upstairs with its gently sloping roof and its bay window overlooking the garden.

"You'll have your own private bath, down here," Lucien said, and the sound of his voice so close behind her made her jump; she'd almost forgotten he was there at all. "And I'll be close by, if you need me."

Jean took one long, slow breath, trying to gather her thoughts before she spoke. She wanted to scream at him. She wanted to take her bag and wallop him with it. How _dare_ he be so presumptuous? To enter her private room, without her consent, to touch all of her private, personal belongings, to cart them downstairs as if the paltry contents of her personal possessions were his to dispose of as he chose? It was a gross breach of courtesy, to her mind, and it smarted, the knowledge that he was so worried about her capacity to fend for herself that he had moved her closer to him. Did he think she couldn't manage the stairs on her own? And she'd never had a private bath in all her life; why did he think she'd need one now?

 _Because the medicine is going to make you so ill,_ she realized. _You will be too weak to manage the stairs, and you won't be able to keep anything down, and you'll fade away, day by day._

Anger gave way to fear, as she realized what Lucien saw lying ahead for her, as she realized what was coming. She'd been so focused on getting out of hospital that she had devoted little time to thinking about this, about what would come _after_. Lucien hadn't, though. Lucien knew precisely what lay in store for her, and he had acted in her best interest, seeking only to help.

And really, it was a grand gesture. His mother's studio, restored not as an artist's workroom, but as a bedroom and a parlor for _Jean._ No one had stepped into this room for forty years, out of respect for the dearly departed Mrs. Blake, but Lucien had done this thing for _her._ For her sake he had faced his memories and the ghosts of his past and the grief he no doubt still felt at the loss of his mother; he had done this thing so that she might be more comfortable. Much as she wanted to hate him for the invasion of her privacy and the sudden dismantling of her life there was such kindness in the gesture she hardly knew what to say. Was it possible to be frightened, and cross, and grateful, all at once?

"It looks beautiful," she forced herself to say through clenched teeth. "It must have taken rather a lot of work."

She did not look at him; she was certain if she did she would burst into tears.

"Well," he said. He was shifting on his feet; she couldn't see him, but she could hear him, just the same. "I had some help. It seems like everyone in Ballarat had a hand in it."

"Oh, _Lucien,_ you didn't-" the last thing Jean wanted was pity, and she was mortified at the very idea of Lucien going around with his hat in his hand, begging charity on her behalf.

"You have done so much to care for so many people, Jean. They just want to show you a little care in turn."

She looked at him then; she couldn't help it. His expression was soft, and warm, and Jean's heart fluttered, just a little, at the sight of his blue eyes fixed so completely on her. They knew so little about one another; she had been certain he disdained her, certain that he thought her small-minded and judgmental, certain that they would be better off without one another, but he had been so very kind, from the moment he first learned that she was unwell, and he was saying such kind things now, and she hardly knew how to reconcile her previous impressions of him with the man who stood before her.

"Well," she said, a bit thickly, "I shall have to thank them."

He smiled then; had she noticed before what a lovely smile he had? He smiled so rarely, she was not sure she'd ever seen its like before.

"Why don't you have a seat on the sofa, and I'll go and fetch Mattie, and we'll all have a cup of tea together."

When they entered the house she'd wanted to do nothing of the sort. She'd wanted a bath, and a few moments to gather her thoughts. But just now, in this moment, standing in this room with him, seeing the work of his hands all around her, she found that she wanted that cup of tea more than anything else. It would be quite nice, she thought, to sit in front of that fireplace, and listen to Mattie's chatter. It _was_ nice, to be home.

"That would be lovely, Lucien," she told him. "Thank you."


	17. Chapter 17

"Really, Jean, do you like it?"

Mattie's sweet, earnest voice brought him up short; he had been en route to the studio, determined to say good night to the ladies of the house before seeking his own bed, but now that Mattie had asked the question he found he rather wanted to hear the answer, and he feared that he would never learn the truth if Jean knew he was listening. And so he loitered, just out of sight of the open doors, listening hard while Jean and Mattie talked in her new parlor.

"It's a very kind gesture," Jean said, diplomatic as always. "I might like it more if I'd been consulted first."

Lucien hung his head. When the idea came to him he had been so certain it was the right one, and then he had been so caught up in the work, and he had poured over the plans with Mattie, hoping to choose things Jean would like for her new bedroom, but a small, perhaps childish piece of his heart had wanted to keep it a surprise. He'd wanted Jean to come home and be delighted by the transformation, had wanted her to be pleased, and happy with him. Her initial response to the renovated studio had been one of dismay, and he'd regretted his obfuscation at once. It would seem Jean did not like surprises. But then she had not taken him to task for it, had not insisted that her things be moved back upstairs, and so he supposed he ought to be grateful that she had chosen to accept his gift, however much she might have disapproved.

"I think he wanted to surprise you," Mattie said, as if she could read his mind from where he stood outside the studio; that was a troubling thought.

"I'm sure he did," Jean answered. "And really, you two did a remarkable amount of work. And it looks beautiful."

High praise indeed, he thought, coming from Jean, who could find fault with anything.

"Lucien wanted you to like it. He wanted it to be beautiful, for you."

There was a strange, almost wheedling note to the girl's voice that Lucien did not understand at all. It made him quite nervous.

"Yes, and I'm sure I'll be grateful for that when I'm too tired to get out of bed for days at a time."

"Oh, Jean," Mattie sighed; all trace of teasing had left her now. "I am so sorry."

"Yes, well," Jean said, and Lucien could almost picture her reaching out, catching Mattie's chin in her hand in that comforting sort of way she had. "What will be will be, won't it?"

Perhaps that was true, but Lucien remained determined to do everything in his power to make Jean comfortable, to keep her well, to protect her in the days ahead. He had lingered long enough; Mattie would be leaving any second now, and it wouldn't do for her to catch him eavesdropping, and so he squared his shoulders, and marched into Jean's new little parlor.

They had passed some time in there already, the three of them, enjoying a cup of tea before supper, and then they had all trooped off to the table together. Jean had tutted over the fare Mrs. Toohey had brought, and promised Lucien and Mattie that she would make their supper herself the following day, a pronouncement that was met with much relief from her charges. After supper Lucien tried to help with the dishes, but Jean had been firm in her insistence that his help wasn't needed; he'd sat and fretted on the sofa in front of the television until she finally joined them, settling herself into her favorite armchair and picking up her knitting. Watching her needles darting and weaving in the glow of _Game of Champions_ had never been as comforting to him as it was on this night. But now, the time had come for them all to go to bed, and it didn't seem right to go off without bidding them both good night.

Mattie smiled, as Lucien stepped into the studio.

"It's lovely to have you home, Jean," she said, and then she leaned over and kissed Jean's cheek. "Good night."

"Good night, Mattie," Jean answered, smiling, though her gaze drifted curiously towards Lucien.

"Lucien," Mattie said as she passed him in the doorway. There was a bit of mischief in her eyes, and he could not for the life of him imagine why.

"Mattie," he said, and then she was gone, and he was left alone with Jean. Feeling somewhat awkward, then, he stuffed his hands in his pockets, and shifted uncomfortably on his feet.

"Erm," he said. Not the most auspicious beginning, to be sure. "I've spoken with Doctor Nicholson. Mattie is going to collect your medication from the hospital on her rounds each Monday. It will need to be kept in the refrigerator. We'll get one week's worth at a time."

"I'll clear out a space for it, then," Jean said. She looked as miserable as he felt, in that moment; he'd raised the specter of her illness, now, and any good humor Mattie's presence might have left behind had well and truly vanished.

"He's already sent over a supply for this week, so I think we'll get started tomorrow, if that's all right with you."

Jean sighed, and rested her hand against the back of the new leather sofa, leaning away from him as if she could hardly bear to be in the same room with him. He tried to tell himself that it wasn't personal, that it was the tidings he brought and not Lucien himself she objected to, but it was hard to believe, at present.

"What's going to happen, Lucien? I mean, how will this work?"

"You'll take a few pills each morning, and then three days a week I'll administer treatment intravenously. You likely won't notice a change right at first; you'll probably feel fine tomorrow, and maybe even the next day."

"But eventually I won't feel fine at all, will I?"

Lucien looked at her a bit helplessly; they both knew the answer, and yet he was not prepared to face it.

"Will I need to sit in the surgery, when you give me the medication?"

"I think that's probably for the best. Mattie and I sat down with my appointment book, and we marked out all the mornings you'll need treatment, so you'll have my full attention."

She frowned; she probably didn't approve of anyone meddling in the appointments, the organization of which was Jean's sole domain, but Mattie had made all the calls herself, and done a fine job, to Lucien's mind.

"What if Superintendent Lawson needs you?"

"Superintendent Lawson can wait."

He said the words with more heat than he'd intended; Jean's eyebrow quirked in surprise, but she brought herself back under control quickly. No doubt she thought he was being impulsive again, making grand declarations he had no intention of committing to, but Lucien had already discussed the matter with Matthew, and Matthew had been as firm as Lucien himself on the subject of Jean's care. Her treatment would come first; anything else would have to wait.

"I'm going to get very tired of you poking at me with needles, aren't I?" Jean asked a bit wryly. Lucien saw through her attempt at levity at once; it did not happen often, those strange beats of silence between them, but it happened often enough for Lucien to recognize it for what it was. One or another of them would say something that challenged their preconceptions of one another, and they would be left watching each other, thoughtful, wondering what else they could have been wrong about. Maybe Jean had been wondering, just then, if Lucien was really as selfish as she'd always thought him to be. Maybe he just wanted to think that was the case.

"Oh yes, I imagine so," he said, as lightly as he could manage. Months stretched out before him, months of him taking Jean's blood pressure and her weight, months of him pressing his fingers to the tender skin at the crook of her arm, sliding a needle into her vein, months of him close to her, looking after her, months of them trying to find some way to share such proximity courteously, without offending one another, months of watching her suffer, and nothing for him to do but wait, and hope. Months of darkness, and the light at the end of the tunnel was not guaranteed. His heart sank as he looked at her now; she was... _beautiful_ , in the gentle golden glow of the fire he'd laid for her, beautiful, with her perfect curls and her perfect makeup, her red-painted nails still shiny and unchipped despite the fortnight in hospital, her eyes bright and warm. She was beautiful, now, but would the cancer steal the beauty from her, too, along with everything else? Somehow he thought not.

"Thank you, Lucien," Jean said quietly, her eyes soft, and watching him. "For everything you did for me in hospital. For organizing the medication. For this," she waved her hand, encompassing all of the studio in that one gesture.

"It's my pleasure, Jean," he told her, more earnestly than he meant to. "You know," he took a step towards her, thought better of it at the last moment, and then veered away, heading towards the fireplace. "The studio was my favorite place in the whole house, when I was little. My mother was always in here, making something, and sometimes she'd let me play with her paints. It's nice to see the rooms open again, and put to good use."

And it was, nice, to have thrown open those doors and found warmth and peace within, and not further grief. It was like the lancing of a wound, he thought; ignored, the sorrow of this place had festered, but now that he had faced it he found himself grateful for the memories, and grateful, too, that no corner of the house remained haunted. If the ghost of Genevieve Blake still walked here, she was no longer unhappy.

"Your father loved her very much, you know," Jean said, and when he turned to look at her he found her walking towards him, coming to join him at the fireplace. The thought of his father made him frown; there had been little love in the Thomas Blake he recalled, but Jean had always spoken of him so warmly, with respect and care, and her respect grated on his nerves. As far as he was concerned, Thomas hadn't earned it. But then again, Jean thought he had; perhaps Thomas had been kinder to his housekeeper than he'd ever been to his son. It was an unpleasant thought.

"So did I," Lucien said grimly. Lucien had adored his _maman,_ and then a bare few days after she died Thomas had sent him away, to grieve her all alone at the tender age of ten. It wasn't something he liked to recall.

"Here," he said suddenly, wanting to change the subject. "I asked them leave this." He reached out for the mantle above the fireplace, and withdrew a small piece of gold leaf. "My mother used it in her paintings. Gold leaf is very light, you see, and she used to take a piece like this," he held it out in front of the fire, the heat against his palm helping him find the air current rising off of it, and all the while Jean watched him, hardly blinking. "She'd say _watch this,_ and then…"

And then he let it go, and he and Jean watched together as the gold leaf caught, and lifted; she tilted her chin, watching the leaf rising higher and higher, but Lucien just watched her, the soft, wondering smile that stretched across her face, the long, elegant line of her slender neck, the curve of her jaw, and he smiled, too, thinking she was more beautiful than any gilded ceiling.

"That's wonderful," Jean said, laughing; she tilted her head back further, turned slightly on her heel, taking in the full view of the ceiling, now, covered in all its many flecks of gold.

"Even on a cloudy night, you'll have a sky full of stars," Lucien said, quite without meaning to. If he'd intended it, surely he wouldn't have managed to express himself so poetically, he thought ruefully. That was what he'd wanted, in fixing up these rooms for Jean, was to give her something beautiful, something that might make her happy, something that might ease the pain that was coming for her, in the days ahead.

For a moment Jean stood still, staring at the ceiling, but then she slowly lowered her head until she was looking him in the eyes. There was a flush in her cheeks; _the heat of the fire_ , he told himself, though in his heart he wished she might have had another reason to blush.

"Thank you, Lucien," she whispered.

The moment stretched, silence falling on them like a blanket of snow, muffling everything save for the sound of his own beating heart. A month ago he never would have dreamed that looking at Jean might make him feel like this, might make his stomach flip, his throat constrict, his blood race through his veins, but a month before he had not stood so damnably close to losing her, had not allowed himself to acknowledge how lovely she was, how strong she was, how badly he needed her. Everything had changed.

"You're quite welcome," he breathed. And then he caught himself; he was standing alone with his housekeeper in her private rooms, and whatever momentary whimsy may have fallen over him he was sure Jean would not approve. "Good night, Jean," he added, and then before all sense of propriety left him he turned to go.

"Good night, Lucien," her soft voice, strangely thoughtful now, chased him from the room.


	18. Chapter 18

Jean woke slowly the following morning, and lay for a time staring up at the high vaulted ceiling of her new bedroom, absently picking out the pinpricks of light that glimmered above her in the gloom, Lucien's flecks of gold reflecting back the first wan light of dawn filtering in through the curtains drawn over the windows behind her bed. It was still her bed, the same mattress and pillows, sheets and coverlet, the same sturdy wood frame, the same soft white blanket she'd knit herself draped over the end to keep her feet warm. The little wireless, the books she'd been reading, the precious photographs of her sons - now several years out of date - all of her things had been settled here, in this strange place, and helped to make it feel just a little bit more like home, despite the sudden upheaval of her life. Jean wanted, very much, to be grateful for the pains Lucien and Mattie had taken to make her comfortable here, but that word _comfortable_ tasted like ashes in her mouth. They would all be trying to make her _comfortable,_ now, going out of their way to make sure that she rested, that she was warm enough, that she was not in too much pain, while everything that she was, everything that she wanted to be, was slowly stripped away from her.

The pursuit of _comfort_ had never been chief among Jean's goals; she wanted to work, to make something of herself, to keep her family fed, but she was not like Lucien, indulging in expensive whiskey and fine art and content to sleep the day away, if no one was around to rouse him. And she was not like Mattie, so eager for fun and friends and excitement. For so long she had been focused on the care and keeping of others, and she found that now, now that everyone's mind had turned to _her_ care she did not entirely know what to do with herself. At that very moment she felt right as rain; a bit sore, perhaps, but she and pain were very old friends, and this was not so very bad. She had known worse. On this bright morning she felt entirely herself, and yet the change in her surroundings spoke to other, greater changes lying in wait for her. Lucien meant to start her treatment that very day, and once it began...well.

 _We shall see what we shall see,_ Jean thought. _But right now, first things first._

First things first meant a trip to the loo, and a few moments spent washing her face and arranging her hair. With expert care she applied her makeup, and then she passed from the bathroom back to the bedroom, gathering up her clothes as she went. Her sharp brown skirt and favorite pale pink blouse, still neatly pressed despite their journey downstairs. Fresh knickers and a bra, and her girdle; Doctor Nicholson had told her to forego the girdle until she'd healed completely, but she felt quite fine and had no intention of listening to him. Stockings clasped neatly in place, her brown suede pumps, her favorite gold and pink flower earrings and a simple necklace sparkling at the base of her throat; by the time she was done she looked more like herself than she had done for a fortnight, and she drew strength from the familiarity of the routine.

Dressed and pressed and ready to face the day she marched smartly from the bedroom, intent on carrying on as normal, for as long as she could. Normal meant cooking breakfast and heating the kettle for tea, meant chiding Lucien about his schedule and laughing with Mattie, and Jean was quite looking forward to it. A fortnight was far too long to be away from her kitchen, and her fingers itched for want of occupation, a plan of attack already forming in her mind. She'd check all the cupboards and drawers, make sure everything was as clean as it ought to have been and in its proper place, and then she'd take stock of the larder and the refrigerator, and make a trip into town if it was warranted. After that she'd make a bit of lunch, and then she'd submit to Lucien's attentions in the afternoon. He'd said she probably wouldn't feel ill right away, and Jean clung to that knowledge as a talisman. _I have one day,_ she thought; _and I shall make the most of it._ She'd tidy the whole house, and make a big pot of stew for supper, and just like that, she had the whole day planned out, and in the planning of it she found more _comfort_ than she had drawn from any of Lucien's efforts thus far.

And yet her plans were turned upside down in a moment, for as she stepped into the kitchen she found a strange sight waiting for her.

Lucien stood by the stovetop, whistling as he deftly managed a pan of eggs and a pan of bacon, one hand on each, as natural as if he did the same every morning of his life. His waistcoat and jacket were draped over his chair at the table, his shirtsleeves rolled back to his elbows, and he had fastened one of her aprons haphazardly around him in an attempt to protect himself from the splatter of bacon grease. For a moment she watched him, the tanned skin and ropey muscles of his forearms, his white shirt stretched taut across his broad back. It should have been comical, really, seeing Lucien who was so strong and so tall caught in one of her floral aprons with the strings straining to meet behind his back, but it only made her heart lurch unpleasantly in her chest. _She_ was meant to cook for _him,_ not the other way around. She was, after all, his housekeeper, and he paid her a weekly wage for this work. If she did not work, how could she accept the wages? And without wages, how was she meant to carry on? Someone had to pay for the medicines, the food she ate, the clothes she wore, and if Jean could not do that herself, what did that make her? A charity case for him, a way for him to exorcise his guilt? The thought appalled her.

"I believe that's my job, Doctor Blake," she said primly from the doorway. She meant to sound teasing, to remind him that he had no need to carry on in this fashion now that she was home without chiding him outright, but her voice came out brittle, and he jumped at the sound of it.

"Good morning, Jean," he said, watching her over his shoulder. "Kettle's hot, if you'd like some tea. I'm nearly finished here, if you'll just have a seat I'll bring it to you in a moment."

Jean only just managed to refrain from stomping her foot. The last thing she wanted was to sit at the table sipping tea while he made her breakfast, lounging around while someone else did all the work.

"You look like you know what you're doing there," she said, ignoring the kettle completely and coming to stand beside him. She had half a mind to nudge him out of the way right then, but she restrained herself, choosing instead to move slowly, in the hopes that he might hand over the breakfast to her without need of further prodding.

"Breakfast is the one meal I know how to make," he told her with an easy smile. Such an innocuous statement, but still it left her feeling awkward. A gentleman like Lucien, wealthy and well-educated, perhaps might have learned to make his own breakfast if his housekeeper did not come until later in the day, or if he gave her regular days off and meant to fend for himself without her, but his casual remark made her wonder if he'd learned for another reason. If perhaps he had done it so that on those occasions when he woke with a woman in his bed he might be able to treat her well, spoil her or impress her with his tender care. He had only been back in Ballarat a few months and to Jean's very great relief he had not been foolish enough to bring any woman home - she would have tanned his hide, if he'd done any such thing with Mattie in the house - but he had lived a long and adventurous life before he'd come here, and Jean did not doubt for one moment that he'd had his share of... _fun. How many?_ She wondered as she looked at him now. _How many women have woken beside him, sat with him half-dressed at the table and eaten a meal he made himself? How many fell half in love with him, on account of that alone?_

"Tea?" he asked, gesturing vaguely towards the kettle, and Jean gave up any hope of reclaiming her stove this morning. _I'll just have to be quicker tomorrow,_ she thought.

"You should have some, too," she answered, and so they worked together for a few minutes more, Jean filling two teacups and fetching down the sugar and the milk while Lucien turned the bacon one last time. They finished at almost precisely the same moment, and carried the plates of food and cups of tea to the table together.

"It looks wonderful, Lucien," she told him as she picked daintily at the eggs. "But I'll cook tomorrow, you needn't worry yourself over it."

"It got to be a habit, while you were away," he confessed, smiling at her praise. "I don't mind it, really."

That man! He never _listened;_ could he not see that Jean was uncomfortable, that she was trying to make things right? Why wouldn't he just let her do as she pleased?

"Do you have any patients this morning?" A change of subject was warranted, she thought; she had every intention of cooking herself the following morning, regardless of what Lucien wanted, and there was no sense in having an argument about it.

"No," he answered. "I'm free as a bird, as it happens. Matthew has no need of me, and I wanted to keep the day clear, in case you did."

"Well," she said. "That's very kind of you, Doctor Blake, but I can manage for myself. I think I'll make a trip into town this morning, and we can start my treatment this afternoon, if that suits you."

"That reminds me," Lucien was out of his chair like a shot, rummaging around in the basket by the telephone before returning with two little bottles of pills. "One of each of these, with breakfast," he said, plopping the bottles on the table beside her teacup. "And I'll be happy to drive you into town."

Jean ground her teeth in frustration and reached for one of the bottles, clutching it so tight for a moment she wondered whether she might break it.

"I can manage -"

"Jean, you've just had major surgery. You shouldn't be walking that far, and you certainly shouldn't be carrying anything. Let me drive you. Please."

The _please_ was perhaps intended to make his words sound more like a request and less like an order, but still, Jean knew she had just been handed instructions she would not be permitted to ignore, and she hated it. Perhaps he was right; Doctor Nicholson had also been insistent that she not over exert herself, and she _was_ a bit sore, but she could not abide this feeling of fragility, of vulnerability, of needing someone else. She had always walked to the shops with her basket on her arm, and carried it back with ease, but now she would need to prevail upon Lucien's good humor to complete even that most mundane of tasks. _What else will I be unable to do, by the end?_ To buy herself a moment to gather her thoughts she took out one of each of the pills, and swallowed them down with her tea.

"I know this is...difficult," Lucien said carefully, watching her as warily as if she were a snake poised to strike. "But it will be all right, Jean, you'll see. It's only for a little while."

"How long, Lucien?" she fired back before she could stop herself. "For months? For a year? If I even live that long?"

His fork fell against his plate with a clatter, his expression aghast, and Jean immediately regretted having spoken her thoughts to him so plainly. They hardly knew one another, and it wasn't fair for her to take out her frustrations on him, to expect answers from him that he could not provide.

"I will ride with you, this morning," she announced resignedly before he could protest, could offer her more empty reassurances, more kindness she could not reciprocate. Really, he had been lovely, more than lovely, and he was trying so hard, she knew he was, and he didn't deserve having his kindness thrown back in his teeth.

"Thank you, Jean," he said, and they continued to eat in silence until Mattie came down to join them.


	19. Chapter 19

Jean was cross. Only a fool could have been blind to the ire slowly building in her as the minutes passed, and while Lucien Blake was many things he was not a fool. 

_ She doesn’t want me here,  _ he thought morosely as he pulled his father’s unreliable old car to a stop in front of the butcher’s. Jean had accepted his offer of a lift into town but she had done so only under duress, he knew, had only accepted him to avoid an argument she knew she’d never win. Acceptance did not equate to defeat, however; Jean would permit him to accompany her, but she was pointedly refusing to be happy about it.

“You can wait here, if you like,” she said, already clambering out of the car before Lucien had a chance to run round and open the door for her. If she’d waited a moment longer she would have seen him grimace, but as it was she was already marching towards the door of the shop with a basket on her arm. He sighed and hurried after her, thinking how bloody stubborn she was. He had only offered to  _ help,  _ but Jean was acting as if the offer itself had been a grave insult, and he wasn’t entirely sure how he was meant to improve matters between them when this first small offer of help was only the first of many; Jean would have to accept all kinds of help from all different quarters in the coming months, and if she meant to be graceless and petulant all the while they would all be in for an even more difficult time. 

There were two ladies in fine dresses already chatting away at the counter while the butcher busied himself packaging their orders, and when Jean and Lucien came hurrying through the door the ladies both turned to watch, eyebrows rising as they caught sight of Doctor Blake hurrying after his housekeeper with a haggard look upon his face. Gentlemen of his means, gentlemen with wives or housekeepers to look after them, did not venture into the butcher’s, and he knew his presence there would be both something of a novelty, and fodder for gossip in the future, and his heart sank. 

“Good morning, Jean,” the lady closest to them said. She was pretty, in a hard sort of way, and of an age with Jean, and though the material of her dress was far finer than Jean’s pink blouse and skirt Lucien couldn’t help but think that Jean had her beat in matters of personal style.

“Good morning Grace,” she answered. “Victoria.” Grace and Victoria both nodded politely in response to Jean’s greeting, but they were watching Lucien with apparent interest. He couldn’t see Jean’s face, but he was certain an expression of withering disapproval had probably settled there. 

“This is Doctor Blake,” Jean said, gesturing to him with a vague little wave, no doubt noticing the ladies' curious stares, and knowing she had no choice but to make introductions. 

“Good morning, ladies,” Lucien said grandly, sweeping the hat from his head. Appearance meant everything in a town like Ballarat, and though ordinarily he simply couldn’t be bothered to care about the opinions of others on this particular day he was determined not to embarrass Jean any further. He would be polite, and he would not cause trouble; the serenity of his home life depended on it. 

“It’s lovely to meet you, Doctor Blake,” the first of the ladies, Grace, said with a tight little smile. “We’d heard you were back in town, of course, but no one’s seen much of you.”

_ You must not spend much time with murderers or drunks, then,  _ Lucien thought grimly. In the four months since he’d been home he had explored the town rather thoroughly in his work as police surgeon, and spent more time than was wise at the Pig & Whistle, but he had been rather diligently avoiding the society crowd. 

“Still finding my feet,” he answered evenly. “Lovely to be home, though.” 

Truth, or lie? He wondered as he said it. Was it lovely to be home? There were consolations to life in Ballarat he hadn’t found anywhere else; the comfort of his father’s house, Jean’s dedicated care, Mattie’s sweet face, Matthew’s unwavering friendship, unchanged after Lucien’s decades-long absence. His every need was met, and he had a mailbox through which he received regular updates from the private investigator in Hong Kong. The people could be provincial, the pace of life stifling, but as he looked at Jean, her back straight, her chin lifted, long-suffering patience written in every line of her body, he couldn’t help but think there was nowhere else in the world he’d rather be. 

“We must have a little party,” Grace said, an expression in her eyes rather like a cat preparing itself to pounce on an unsuspecting mouse. “Introduce you to the town properly.” 

That was quite the worst idea Lucien had heard in some time, and he stared at her, open-mouthed and aghast, furiously trying to think of some way to both refuse her and save himself such a terrible fate. To his great relief the other lady, Victoria, intervened before he could make a hash of things. 

“How are you feeling, Jean?” she asked quietly, no doubt thinking that while Grace kept the good doctor occupied she could ferret out some juicy tidbits of her own. Jean’s grip on her empty basket tightened, and she smiled thinly as she answered.

“Fit as a fiddle, thank you,” she said primly. Lucien was fairly certain he could have lit Jean on fire in that moment and she would still insist she was feeling  _ quite well, thank you _ even as she burned. Admitting to weakness did not come easily to her; it did not come to her at all, if the last few days were anything to go by. Suffer in silence, that was Jean’s way, and she tried so hard not to let others see when she was struggling. How mortifying this all must be for her, Lucien thought sadly, when all the ladies in town knew already about her surgery, and would know soon enough about the other, more painful secrets she carried. 

“Everyone at church has been praying for your speedy recovery,” Victoria said, piety dripping from her lips like poison. “It’s wonderful to see you out of the house so soon.” There was an accusation there, and a question, but to her credit Jean did not rise to the bait. 

“Really, Jean, you must feel terribly lucky, having Doctor Blake here to look after you,” Grace added, but though she was smiling there was no kindness in her eyes as her gaze flickered back and forth between Lucien and Jean.

_ Christ,  _ he thought morosely,  _ is it like this for her every time she leaves the house?  _ While Lucien was well aware that some folks had been whispering about him, and her, and their situation, he had not ever suffered for it in any way. Oh, Mrs. Morrisey had made some snide remark about his father’s housekeeper, trying to discomfit him, but other than that he had not really been affected by it. Jean, though, Jean had to go out amongst these people every day without the air of authority afforded to Lucien by virtue of his sex and his money and his titles; was she often faced with such snide innuendo, so carefully concealed and yet so patently obvious? That Grace and Victoria were no great friends of hers was plain to him, and beneath the studied courtesy of their words there lay a terrible sense of maliciousness, as if Jean were a deer, and Grace and Victoria were trying to coax her into trusting them before they felled her and took her home as a trophy. And yet, still, she did not protest, or snap at their insidious curiosity, only remained still and smiling, knowing she could ill afford to upset them.

“The Doctor has been a great help to me,” Jean said evenly, talking about Lucien as if he weren’t even there.  _ A great help;  _ had he been? He dearly hoped so. 

The butcher finished his work and called out to them, and Grace and Victoria turned their backs on Lucien and Jean, chatting amiably with the man behind the counter while they paid and gathered their provisions. Jean remained frozen beside him, unmoving, watching the two ladies carefully, clutching her basket, and for the first time he found himself wondering how other people thought of her. Not just the predictable gossip incited by a beautiful widow living with a known rake, but her actual reputation; who was  _ Jean,  _ to these people? To Lucien she had been, from the very first, a paragon of virtue and disapproval, prim and proper and brooking no nonsense, a queen in his castle, and he had deferred to her as often as he could, knowing that her happiness would be the key to his continuing to live a peaceful life. But these ladies, Grace and Victoria, they attended church with Jean, and had likely known her for years, decades, even. Surely to them she was no great authority, wielded no particular power. For a moment he tried to look at her, and see what they saw. 

She was, as ever, impeccably dressed and pressed, her hair and makeup styled just so, the polish on her fingernails immaculate despite the fortnight she’d spent in hospital. Her clothes were quite fine, he thought, for they fit her well and the colors suited her, but her outfit was not so expensive as Grace’s, nor as modern and fashionable as Victoria’s. Did they see the care she took with her appearance, and pity her for trying so hard and yet not ever belonging in their social circles? She had married young, or he thought she had, based on the fact that the eldest of her sons was already married. She had worked in service for many years, and he imagined that Grace and Victoria had not ever worked at all. But then Jean was widowed, had been forced to find some way to bring up her boys on her own, and she had done so on her own terms, not seeking out a husband to provide for her. Lucien admired her for that, for her independence and her tenacity, but would Grace and Victoria - and the rest of the bloody town - disdain her for it? Did they think her somehow lacking, on account of her apparent inability to attract a man? Knowing her as he did Lucien rather thought that her continued widowhood was a studied choice, and not the result of a lack of options, but what if he was wrong? What if no man had ever showed any interest in her? The thought seemed ludicrous, given that she was beautiful and clever and capable, but she had been alone for nearly twenty years. What if the whole town knew something about her that he did not? 

There was so much he did not know, he realized as he looked at her now, as Grace and Victoria bid them both a brief farewell and Jean stepped up to the counter to place her order. She had a lifetime full of secrets, but in a town like Ballarat secrets never stayed buried for long. Maybe everyone else knew something he didn’t, about where she had come from, about the man she had married, about her continued isolation. He wanted to  _ know, _ wanted to ask her every question that swirled through his mind, wanted to learn her story, all of it, wanted to tell everyone he met that no matter what they might believe Jean was, truly, wonderful. She was, he thought, perhaps the most wonderful woman he’d ever met.

“Nice to see old friends,” Lucien said carefully as he and Jean waited by the counter. The shop was empty now save for the butcher, and he showed no interest whatsoever in the conversations of his customers.

Jean looked up at him sharply, a retort no doubt already perched on the tip of her tongue, but she caught sight of his face, and she must have seen the disdain he held for Grace and Victoria there for she did not admonish him. 

“They aren’t so bad,” she said carefully. Lucien thought they were rather terrible, but he would defer to Jean on this particular matter. “They’re just curious. Like everyone else.” 

How could he possibly respond to that?  _ They shouldn’t be? I’m sorry?  _ He was sorry; he felt rather as if it were all his fault, somehow, as if Jean’s life might have been made unbearable by his presence. Even as the thought occurred to him he was reminded that before the revelation of her illness Jean had been determined to leave him; perhaps he  _ had _ made life unbearable for her, after all. And now she was stuck with him, reliant on him to help her, to care for her, to see her through. No wonder she was so cross, he thought. 

“You’re worth more than they’ll ever know,” he said softly. 

Jean’s eyes widened in surprise, her cheeks flushing pink at the unexpected praise, but the butcher had finished wrapping up their parcel, and the time had come to pay. Lucien stepped up the counter and paid the man himself, while Jean tucked the meat into her basket. They still had a stop to make at the greengrocer’s, and Lucien meant to duck into the florist's while they were here, to pick up fresh flowers for the table - for  _ Jean,  _ who deserved them, he thought - and that basket would be quite heavy, by the time they were through. 

And so as they turned to leave Lucien reached out, and stopped Jean with a gentle hand upon her arm.

“Let me,” he said, indicating the basket. She really should have been at home resting, but she had insisted on coming out today, and the least he could do was carry the load for her, to try, in whatever small way he could, to lessen the burden she carried.

For a moment he thought Jean would refuse him. She didn’t want him there, anyway, didn’t want him fawning over her, didn’t want people to see him carrying her basket, catering to  _ her  _ instead of the other way round. They had agreed to begin her treatment that very afternoon, and perhaps she had been longing for one last chance to proceed as if everything were normal, to carry out her duties as she always did and find comfort in the routine. His presence alone had incensed her, and perhaps this last request would be a bridge too far; Jean had been carrying her burdens all by herself for a good many years, now, and he rather got the sense she had forgotten how to accept assistance from others.

But to his delight she only smiled, and slipped the basket off her arm. 

“Thank you, Lucien,” she said, and he beamed at her, and together they walked out of the butcher’s shop and into the sunshine. 


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: now seems as good a time as any to mention that while some research has been done I am, obviously, not an expert in the matter of healthcare in Australia in the late 1950's. The purpose of the inclusion of any medical details is entertainment and not accuracy; I beg, then, for a willing suspension of disbelief.

The afternoon came rather more quickly than Jean would have liked, proceeded by the strangest of mornings. A trip to the butcher's - and the greengrocer's, and the florist's - was by itself not unusual, and neither was her interaction with Grace and Victoria; she often encountered at least one person she knew while out and about, and often endured carefully coded questions about Lucien and his business and her connection to him all the while. What made that morning strange was not the events themselves, but rather that Lucien had been beside her, watching her with that painful, desperate-to-please little boy look he sometimes wore. _You're worth more than they'll ever know;_ that had been strange, and so too had been the way her stomach gave a funny little flip when he spoke those words, delight and surprise and gratitude and worry all swirling around together. That he had seen through Grace and Victoria's pleasantries to the insidious motivations underneath and declared Jean _worthy_ despite the way the wealthier ladies in town looked down their noses at her, that pleased her, but the worry remained. What would make him say such a thing, she'd asked herself, and had he only been offering a kindness he thought she needed when she found herself at such a low point in her life? Or did he mean those words, mean them truly? And why, _why_ did his opinion of her matter more to her than the opinions of people she'd known all her life?

When the day began she'd wanted to be cross with him, for the way he'd insinuated himself into her daily affairs, for the way he'd refused her the little bit of normalcy she so desperately craved, but his kindness had smothered her ire, and she could not help but smile when he offered to take her basket; he'd reminded her, then, of Christopher, the way he had been when they were young, carrying her school books for her as they walked home together. It was such an innocent, gentlemanly thing to do that she quite forgot to be cross with him. And by the time they finished their shopping she'd been forced to admit, if only to herself, that she was grateful he'd insisted on coming with her; her body ached, from head to foot, and she was dog tired before lunchtime. He'd been right; if she'd tried to do it on her own, and walked all the way home with the full basket clutched in her hands, she was sure she'd have been in a terrible state by the time her journey was done.

It was the surgery, she knew, her body still tender and weak after the operation, but still, the thought that she ought to _take it easy_ was a galling one. Jean had never taken anything easily in her entire life, and though she did not intend to start now already the needs of her body had begun to assert themselves, reminding her that whatever she might wish, the state of affairs remained unchanged. Darkness was coming for her, and she could not stop it.

She could not stop it, and so as soon as they returned home Jean shooed Lucien out of the kitchen, and set to work. The roast they'd purchased went straight into the oven before Lucien had the chance to take it to the garden and use it for target practice, and the vegetables from the greengrocer's she lined up on the counter, methodically chopping her way through all of them and throwing them into a pot for stew. Once the stew was bubbling away she called Lucien in for a quick lunch of tomato sandwiches, and then pushed him right back out the door, into his surgery and out of her way. There were eggs and sausages for breakfast, and so she pulled down her favorite bowl and set about preparing dough for bread so that they might also have toast; if she could get it mixed and kneaded now she could leave it out to rise while Lucien administered her medication, and bake it after. _Biscuits, too, maybe_ she thought as she worked her hands through the dough, the movements familiar and comforting in their own way. Lucien had assured her that she likely wouldn't feel ill after treatment today, that it would take some time before the ill effects of the medication set in, and Jean was determined to do as much as she could with the time that was given to her. Between the roast and the stew and the eggs and the bread they had enough food to see them through for the next few days, and after that…

 _Yes, I'll make biscuits, too_ , she told herself. Lucien did have a sweet tooth; would there be enough time for her to make a lemon drizzle cake, instead? Lemon had been his father's favorite. Jean herself preferred chocolate, if she were being honest, but chocolate seemed such an extravagance that she almost never purchased it.

The time flew by; she set the bread to the side, and mixed up a batch of cinnamon biscuits, and no sooner did the roast come out of the oven than the biscuits went in, and just like that, Jean found herself quite without anything else to do. It was the wrong time of year for making jam, and there was nothing in the house to can, and save for another day. Perhaps she could have made a cake, as well, but the clock was ticking, and she wanted to save the eggs for breakfast. _I feel certain I'm forgetting something._

The thought had no sooner occurred to her than she heard the sound of Lucien clearing his throat behind her. Jean spun on her heel and found him leaning in the doorway, a pained expression on his face.

"I was just thinking, Jean, perhaps now might be a good time to…" he left it hanging, but there was no need for further explanation; she knew very well what he meant. The afternoon was wearing on, and the time had come for her to submit, finally, to the first of the many indignities that waited for her in the coming months.

"Come and have a cup of tea," she said. "The biscuits need a few more minutes. When they come out, we can go into the surgery."

A petulant part of her heart would have been quite glad to leave those bloody biscuits in the oven for the rest of the afternoon, just to avoid what she knew was coming, but that would only delay the inevitable. She'd end up with a needle in her arm either way, and even burned biscuits wouldn't be enough to save her.

Lucien crossed the kitchen looking strangely nervous, making a beeline for the kettle and affording her a wide berth in the process. While he took down the teacups and the sugar Jean fetched the milk from the fridge, and they met together at the table, making up their tea together before retreating to their customary chairs, Lucien at the head of the table and Jean at his right hand.

"It smells heavenly in here, Jean," Lucien said.

Jean's mother had taught her to clean while she cooked, and so despite the flurry of activity she'd undertaken the kitchen was as spotless now as it had been when she began. The roast was cooling on a wooden board on the side, and the stew was simmering on low. The bread was slowly growing in its bowl near the window, covered with a tea towel, and the smell of cinnamon and sugar wafted enticingly from the oven.

"Let's hope it tastes heavenly, too," she answered him, trying to be friendly and polite, trying to behave as if nothing were amiss, as if she hadn't spent the whole day desperately trying to prepare for the moment her strength failed her. The ladies from Sacred Heart would look after them, Jean knew, if it came to that; after all, Celia and Evelyn had already stepped in while Jean was in hospital. But the situation felt different, now that Jean was home; so long as she was in the house, and capable of standing, she did not want anyone to think she could not look after her family.

"I'm sure it will," Lucien told her, smiling softly. "Everything you make is wonderful, Jean."

It was the second time today he'd complimented her, and it shocked her as much as the first. She could not recall his having ever praised her so directly, and though his smile was warm she still felt a tug of doubt, wondering whether he was being sincere, or if he was only trying to comfort her, as any doctor would for his patient.

* * *

Jean looked somewhat thrown by his compliment, and Lucien dropped his gaze down to his tea, trying hard to hide the smile that tugged at the corner of his lips. How could it be, he asked himself, that a woman as capable and accomplished as Jean seemed so unused to praise? Surely, he thought, she'd heard her fair share of it. She had a lovely singing voice - he'd learned that to his delight one afternoon when he had returned from the station early, and caught her singing along to the wireless while she worked - and she was a marvel in the kitchen, and an angel with the sewing needle, kept his books in better order than he ever could have managed on his own, and she was, after all, very beautiful. _Maybe it's time someone told her so,_ he thought. Maybe if she heard it often enough she'd begin to believe it.

For a moment they sat together in silence, but then Jean sniffed the air and declared that the biscuits were done. She had not so much as glanced at her watch, did not seem to be keeping track of the time at all; she had just known, somehow, by some mysterious intuition, the precise moment she needed to fetch the biscuits out of the oven. He watched her, the graceful way she moved, the little blue apron strings tied around the neat tuck of her waist, the bounce of her dark curls; he watched her, and smiled, as she pulled the biscuits from the oven and set them out to cool. They did smell heavenly, he thought, and she looked it, too.

When that was done they had no further excuse to linger, however. Jean sighed and untied her apron with a casual flick of her wrist, swept it off her and hung it on the hook by the kitchen door, and then she turned to him with her hands on her hips.

"Well," she said. "I suppose we'd best be getting on with it."

"Yes," Lucien agreed, taking one last hasty sip of his tea. "Let's."

There was no sense in waiting; the sooner Jean's treatment began the sooner it would end, and the sooner she would begin to heal. He watched her closely as she marched beside him out of the kitchen and into the surgery, knowing that if she were fatigued or in pain she'd likely never tell him, and trying to discern from her demeanor whether all was well. There was a drawn sort of look about her face, and she was moving perhaps a bit slower than usual, but she gave no other outward sign of distress. Lucien had once read in a book that small prey animals, rabbits and the like, would hide signs of illness if they feared danger were near, would not so much as sneeze if they thought they were being observed. He rather felt Jean would surely be the same.

"Up you get," he said as they entered the surgery, trying to sound cheerful as he gestured towards the examination table. Jean shot him a baleful look but did not protest, simply settled herself primly on the end of the table, looking curiously around the surgery as if she'd never seen it before. And in a way he supposed she hadn't, not from this angle; Jean had never entered that room seeking treatment for her own ailment before, had likely never sat down on the table once in her tenure in the house. It would be, he thought, a day of firsts.

"I'll just take your blood pressure first," he told her as he went to fetch the blood pressure cuff. The cuff was properly called a sphygmomanometer, and Lucien was fairly certain that whoever had named it could not have come up with a more cumbersome title if they'd tried. "I'll take it every day, so we can track any potential fluctuations."

"Every day?" Jean repeated sharply as he turned back around to face her.

"It's important to establish a baseline," Lucien said, a tad defensively. Jean just huffed, and tossed her hair.

Fighting the urge to sigh, then, Lucien went to her, determined to care for her no matter how grumpy she might be about the whole affair. Without looking at him Jean held her arm out to him, and Lucien gently slipped the cuff around her bicep, tightening it and feeling his stomach drop at the sight; her arms were strong and lean, but they were small, like the rest of her. At that size the cuff would have barely gone round his wrist, his own arms dwarfing hers. She was such a delicate creature; the thought no sooner occurred to him than he was reminded of the sheer unbreakable force of her will, and inwardly he laughed at his own foolishness. Delicate, perhaps she was, but she was not fragile.

They were quiet, as Lucien did his work; he watched the meter closely, tracking the numbers, hardly breathing. When the thing was done he let the pressure out of the cuff, and he and Jean breathed a sigh of relief in unison.

"A touch high," he declared, gathering up his instruments. "But you've been quite busy this morning, and you're still recovering. Nothing to worry about."

He meant to walk away from her, then, but Jean turned her head to look at him, and he found himself spellbound instead. Her eyes were mesmerizing, at this close range, the color high in her cheeks, the line of her jaw elegant and sharp, her lips painted red and pretty as a bow. He wanted to say something to her, to tell her that everything was going to be all right, to offer her one last set of reassurances; he could see the doubt in her eyes, could almost hear the worries that plagued her. But the words wouldn't come, and as he looked at her he noticed something out of place.

"You've got," he started to say, but his voice left him, and without any direction from his conscious mind his hand raised up of its own accord to brush a streak of flour from the sharp rise of her cheekbone. At the touch of his thumb against her skin Jean gasped, surprised, perhaps, that he had been so bold, and Lucien snatched his hand away, shocked by his own momentary lapse in judgement.

"Right," he said, and then he was moving, rushing away from her; there was much to be getting on with, and he couldn't afford to lose himself in thoughts of her soft skin, her gentle gasps. The day had begun with tension between them, and though that had eased, somewhat, as they meandered through the shops and shared tea together, he had not forgotten her determination to be rid of him, or the way she admonished him, and he knew that she was not interested in his tenderness, however much he might wish to bestow it upon her. He kept his back to her as he scribbled a note about her blood pressure in her file, trying to calm himself, afford himself a chance to gather his wits and focus on the task at hand.

"How will this work, Lucien?" she asked him in an unsteady voice.

He'd fetched her medication from the refrigerator while they were in the kitchen, and he had everything else he needed in the surgery already. But while he had laid his plans he'd yet to share any of them with Jean; he had forgotten, somehow, that she didn't actually know everything, that she couldn't actually read his mind.

"This," he said, hefting up the bag containing her medication, "is the first dose. I'll run a line from your arm to the bag, and we'll hang the bag up here," he gestured towards the IV pole he'd borrowed from the hospital's surplus supply closet. "It'll take about an hour for all the medication to work its way down. You can just lie back there, I've brought a few magazines to help keep you occupied. When that's done, I'll unhook everything, and we'll be finished for today. You shouldn't feel too badly today, but if you start to notice any sort of changes, please, tell me at once. We need to monitor your symptoms and make sure you don't have a bad reaction."

"Doesn't everyone have a bad reaction to it?" Jean asked him. She was watching him nervously as he gathered his sterile supplies and carried them back over to her. He couldn't fault her for that; if he'd been in her shoes, he would have been terrified, he knew.

"We expect certain things," he told her carefully. "We just want to make sure there aren't any results out of the ordinary. And you leave it to me to determine what's normal and what isn't, yes? You don't have to hide anything from me, Jean."

She smiled at him softly, sadly, and he wondered if she was thinking, even as he was, of all the many secrets she kept hidden from him, all the private wonders she carried within her heart he would never know. There were a good many things she probably felt she ought to hide from him, and he supposed every woman would have her personal mysteries, but when it came to the matter of her health, he desperately needed her to be frank.

"Why don't you lie back, get comfortable?" he asked her.

Jean blushed again, and looked away, and Lucien did her the courtesy of staring at his shoes while she settled herself back against the table, rather than watching her as avidly as he wished to do. There was something very, _very_ strange about this, something terribly intimate about her lying prone before him; even with the back of the examination table raised she was more reclined now than he had ever seen her, made vulnerable, somehow, with her legs daintily crossed at the ankles, her hands folded in her lap. If he'd wanted he could have drunk in every inch of her, from her lean legs to the swell of her breasts against the pale pink fabric of her blouse, but to do such a thing seemed disrespectful in the extreme, and so he kept his gaze focused instead on the line of her arm, and not the softness of her belly beneath it.

"We may not have thought this through," he mused. "Can you roll your sleeve up past your elbow for me?"

Her blouse, like all her clothes, fit her so well he wondered whether it would be possible to treat her at all while she wore it. Yet removing it seemed a bridge too far; their nerves were strained enough already, and neither he nor Jean was prepared for him to see what lay beneath that blouse. To his relief, she murmured her agreement, unfastened the cuff of her sleeve and rolled it neatly away, exposing to him the pale softness of her arm, his trained eye seeking out the faint blue line of the vein that ran through the center of her elbow. At least he could see it; he hoped things would not go too badly for him, for the last thing he wanted was to hurt her. Well, to hurt her more than was necessary; a little pain would be inevitable.

"You may want to look away," he suggested as he swabbed gently at the spot where he meant to set the needle, trying not see his hands against her skin, holding her.

"I'm not squeamish," she answered, softly.

Of course she wasn't.

"Right," he said, "here we go."

The bag was ready, the line neat and straight, and the needle found its home in the crook of her arm just as it should have done. Jean did not so much as flinch, when it sank beneath her skin, did not so much as blink while Lucien put the finishing touches on the apparatus; he hung the bag and the medication dripped slowly down the line, just as it was meant to, and Jean lay before him unmoving, her eyes watching him all the while.

"Would you like a magazine, while we wait?" he asked. How many times, he wondered, had she said the same to some patient of his, tried to keep them distracted from their distress or occupied while they waited for him? And if she did want a magazine, which one would she pick? What interested her, when she was not cooking or cleaning? Film stars, or gardening, or world events? How did she keep her mind entertained during the few quiet minutes of each day that belonged to her, and her alone?

"No, thank you," she said. He wanted to protest; an hour was a long time to sit with nothing to do but think about the poison slowly dripping into her vein, and he rather thought a distraction might make things a bit easier on her. But then, he supposed, Jean did not strike him as the sort of woman who took the easy way out of anything.

"Will you wait with me, or is there somewhere else you need to be?"

She was trying to sound pragmatic, he was sure, but he was less sure as to her motivations. Did she want him to go? Or to stay? What would help her most?

"I was planning to stay, if that's all right with you. This first time I want to make sure that everything is working properly."

"Well," she said, leaning her head back against the examination table and closing her eyes, "in that case, I'd be glad of the company, Doctor Blake."

"Very good," he said, with a smile she did not see. Jean seemed comfortable enough, and so he retreated to his desk. There was an autopsy report there he was meant to be reviewing, but it was more of a prop than anything else; he had no intention of reading it, and every intention of spending the next hour watching Jean closely, searching for signs of her discomfort.

For perhaps as much as five minutes they were silent, the pair of them, Jean's eyes closed, Lucien's eyes fixed on her; Mattie was at work, and the house beyond was still and silent, too, as if all the world was holding its breath, waiting to see what might happen next. Lucien had just resolved himself to enduring the most painfully quiet hour of his entire life when Jean surprised him, and spoke.

"Tell me something, Lucien," she said, and his heart leapt into his throat, half in hope and half in fear, not knowing what it was she needed him from him, not sure if he could give it to her, wanting to just the same.

"What's the most interesting place you've ever been?"

It was not at all the sort of question he'd been expecting. He'd thought she meant to chide him for some previous mischief, or to pepper him with questions about the treatment or symptoms she could expect, looking for details, looking for meaning in the chaos of her disease. She hadn't, though; perhaps she'd decided she wanted a distraction, after all. If that were the case, Lucien was more than happy to provide such a service for her.

"Well," he said, leaning back in his chair and crossing his hands behind his head. "Now, that's a very good question."


	21. Chapter 21

It had been her intention, when the treatment began, to sit quietly, perhaps to think about her plans for the rest of the week, to organize her thoughts regarding chores and meals and all the other minutiae that made up her daily life. It had been her intention to pray, if Lucien were quiet, to ask God for guidance in the days and weeks ahead, to beg the Holy Mother to intercede on her behalf, to keep her well and healthy so that she could continue to guide her own children, to be there for her sons when they needed her. But rather quickly all of her intentions fell by the wayside; it was eerily quiet in the surgery, Lucien more still and silent than Jean had ever seen him, and her thoughts kept returning, again and again, to the fact that she was ill.

The treatment itself was not painful, exactly; it was hardly comfortable, lying so still with that needle in her arm, knowing the medicine was seeping slowly through her veins, but it did not burn, did not ache. It was only a little sting, and if she were careful not to move she hardly felt it all. Certainly she had endured far worse, over the course of her lifetime. But it could not be ignored. This was the first treatment, the first of many, the first of countless hours she would spend sitting in the surgery with Lucien. She felt fine enough today; she was a bit tired, perhaps, and a bit sore from her operation, but she was hardly incapicated. Yet still, though she felt well enough, though she felt very much herself, the knowing remained. She _knew_ she was not well. She _knew_ she was only going to feel worse, in the days ahead.

And so to stop her mind from churning ceaselessly over and over the same morose questions - _how bad will it get? Will I die? What will happen to my boys if I do? Why me? -_ she had cast about in search of some other way to occupy herself. The remedy closest at hand was, of course, Lucien. The younger Blake had lived an exotic, adventuresome life so different from the one that Jean had known. And he did so love to talk; he had an eager, gregarious sort of way about him, and given the right incentive she knew he could easily keep her entertained for an hour. Rather than ask him about his patients - whose personal details Jean was already familiar with, and whose medical details were none of her business - or about his work with Matthew - Jean was not particularly keen to discuss death of any sort in any detail, at present - she had landed, at last, upon a topic that was both safe, and of interest to her.

"What's the most interesting place you've ever been?"

When she was young it had been Jean's fondest wish to travel the world, to plant her feet in all the old capitals of Europe, to stand in awed silence beneath the vaulted ceilings of the cathedrals she'd only ever seen pictures of in Father Morton's books in the rectory. Farm and marriage and babies had stolen those dreams from her; what was the splendor of Rome, compared to her own infant son cradled in her arms? There had not been time, and then there had not been money, and then Jean had realized that such dreams were beyond her. It would be enough, for Jean, to be comfortable and happy at home. She hand long since accepted the hand that had been dealt to her, and with good grace. Still, though, she wondered about all that Lucien had seen, and she supposed that he would have more than his fair share of fascinating tales, and it seemed to her a pleasant enough way to pass the time.

"Well," he said, and she heard the chair creak beneath him as he leaned back, settling himself in for a good long chat. "Now, that's a very good question."

And so it began. He told her of the snow capped roofs of the old university in Edinburgh where he had studied medicine, told her of the bustle and glamour of London. He told her of the fragrant trees that rained bright-colored blossoms across his back garden in Singapore, and he told her of the strange dichotomy of Hong Kong, caught between two worlds. He told her that he had once stood upon the Great Wall of China outside a city whose name Jean could not pronounce, and that he had stood beside the rocks at Stonehenge. He talked, and talked, and all the while Jean lay with her closed, listening, trying to see in her mind's eye the pictures he painted. Lucien talked, and Jean smiled, and the time slipped slowly away.

* * *

Lucien talked for quite some time, trying to say anything that he could to help ease Jean through this terrible time. He did not know what had prompted her to ask such a question, what it was she wanted from him, but she did not object as he told the least offensive tales of his journeys through Asia and Europe. Perhaps, he thought, she was simply curious about the world; that she should be curious about _him_ seemed to be a bit of a stretch. She seemed calm enough, lying still and quiet upon the examination table, but after perhaps twenty minutes he noted that her breathing seemed deep and even, and she was no longer peppering him with questions, no longer even humming quietly to let him know that she was still listening. Watching her, then, Lucien fell silent, but Jean still did not move, or speak.

He was quite certain she'd fallen asleep.

Smiling to himself, then, Lucien rose slowly from his chair, and crossed the room to check her pulse. He slid his fingers beneath her wrist gently, trying not to jostle her overmuch, and for a moment he held her wrist, his eye on the slowly ticking second hand of his watch while he counted the beats of her heart. After a minute he was satisfied; her heart rate was just as he wanted it to be, and she seemed comfortable enough, with her hands folded daintily in her lap and her head thrown back against the thin pillow he'd arranged for her on the table. Satisfied, then, he returned to his desk, and sighed as he sank into his chair.

It was hardly surprising, that Jean had fallen asleep. The morning's jaunt to the shops had been too much for her, he was sure, after the stress of her surgery. But she had been so dogged, so determined not to be waylaid or slowed by her illness in any way, and Lucien had been cowed by her sheer strength of will. It would not do, he knew, to allow her to continue to run roughshod over him; he was responsible for her care, and he would need to find some way to communicate the gravity of her situation to Jean, to convince her that she must _listen_ to him. But one did simply give orders to Jean Beazley; she had been delivering orders herself for so long that she would not fall in line for anyone.

 _Such a thing must be done gently,_ he told himself. He was not particularly skilled at cajoling difficult patients; he had little patience himself for those who fancied they knew better than their doctors. Jean, though; Jean was a special case, and would need to be approached with caution.

At the end of the hour he rose from his desk and crossed the room to stand at Jean's side. She was still sleeping peacefully, the furrow in her brow smooth for once as she rested, no worry painted on her face in this unguarded moment. With her dark hair spilling all around her face, with her red-painted lips for once mercifully closed, and not chiding him for some misbehavior, she looked...she looked lovely, he thought. She wore a delicate pair of earrings, the same pale pink as her blouse, worked into the shape of little flowers. Something about those flowers called to him, tugged at his heartstrings; such a little thing, the earrings a woman chose to wear on any given day, and yet they seemed somehow important. Jean had chosen them; she had a fondness for flowers, he knew. Was this pair of particular value to her? She never wore much jewelry, just a watch with a leather band and her gold wedding ring, sometimes a necklace, more often not. Did she have much in the way of jewelry? Or was it an extravagance her purse strings would not stretch to accommodate? What if these had been a gift, were somehow sentimental to her? However she had come by them, she had sat before her jewelry box earlier that morning and chosen them, and that small, unremarkable act was somehow made precious to him, perhaps because it was a reminder that Jean was, above all else, a woman, and she did all the same things every other woman did, applied her makeup and chose her jewelry and smoothed her hands over her skirt and went out into the world each morning with dreams and hopes and desires all her own. What did Jean desire most? He wondered; what would most delight her? Flowers, or jewelry? What dreams did she harbor in her heart?

Though he did not have those answers he _did_ know she would have disapproved of him standing over her, looking at her like this, and so he gave his head a little shake, and went back to work. Slowly, carefully he removed the needle from her elbow; Jean flinched as it withdrew, and sighed, but her eyes did not open. Instead she seemed to settle more firmly back against the table, still asleep for the moment.

"Jean," Lucien called her name softly, wondering if perhaps she might be more comfortable resting in her own room, or on the sofa, but in response she only frowned. Well, perhaps _pout_ might better have described the expression that flickered across her face, and Lucien grinned, delighted by the knowledge that Jean could _pout_ , that she would do such a thing when he tried to rouse her from a nap.

"You stay there," he whispered. _Let her have her rest,_ he thought. After all, what could it hurt, letting her sleep a little while longer? She'd had a difficult time of it lately, and she needed all the sleep she could get. And she looked so peaceful, lying there, he could not bear to disturb her unnecessarily.

Though her eyes did not open Jean mumbled something that sounded vaguely like _bread,_ and Lucien recalled with a start the veritable buffet of food she'd prepared before their session had begun. Someone would need to put the biscuits in the tin, now that they were properly cooled, and someone would need to do something about the roast, and the stew, and there had been a bowl sitting in a pool of sunshine in front of the sink with a tea towel draped across it. Lucien was no expert, but he had learned a thing or two about how Jean ran her kitchen, and he knew that particular bowl, and that particular tea towel, were reserved for the dough for Jean's bread.

"Don't fret," he told her softly. "I'll take care of it."

Jean did not object, and so Lucien left her to her dreams, and made his way once more into the kitchen.

The biscuits were dealt with easily enough; he stacked them neatly inside the tin, and then scrubbed the pan they'd been baked on in the sink. He dried the pan and put it away, and then turned his attention to the roast and the stew. They were both sufficiently cool now, and dinner was a long way off, and so he heaved the pot and the roasting pan both into the refrigerator, thinking they could be reheated closer to suppertime. Those few tasks didn't take him long, and Jean had been, as ever, fastidious as she worked, and so there was precious little mess for him to clean. All that remained was the bread.

For a moment he stood, eyeing the bowl and the tea towel warily. He knew very little about baking, and less about bread. Bread was one of those mysterious, almost magical creations the making of which was far beyond him. Those women he knew who had talked about such things discussed _yeast_ in quiet voices, as if it were a living thing that could overhear them, and might misbehave just to spite them. The dough had to rest, had to be shaped, had to be baked, but he did not entirely know in what order, or how. Jean always made the most wonderful loaves; crusty bread for dinners, and soft white loaves for sandwiches, and beautiful flaky scones when she was feeling particularly generous towards her charges. What had she intended for this dough? He asked himself now. Nothing so adventurous as a baguette, but a cob, perhaps? A nice round country loaf? Or did he need to fetch down one of the sandwich tins? And what on earth would become of it if he uncovered it too early, or baked it at the wrong temperature, or -

 _Steady on, Blake,_ he told himself. _It's only bread._

Squaring his shoulders, Lucien took one very deep breath, and then moved into action. He collected the pan the biscuits had been baked on, and set it atop the stove. He flicked the oven on to what seemed to him to be a reasonable temperature, and as it warmed he reached at last for the tea towel.

 _This is going to be a disaster,_ he thought, staring at the pale, strangely pliant looking dough. For a moment he very nearly lost his nerve, but then he thought of Jean sleeping in the surgery, and all the work she'd done already today, thought of how pleased she might be, to find that this task was done and she needn't worry. Or, at least, he hoped she'd be pleased. Surely any woman would be pleased, to see the man of the house doing a little work for once. Wouldn't she?

 _There's nothing for it,_ he told himself, and then he reached for the dough.


	22. Chapter 22

Jean woke to the smell of smoke and the faint sound of curses drifting in from the kitchen. It took her a moment to orient herself, to remember where she was; though a small plaster had replaced the needle in the crook of her arm she was, still, lying on the table in Lucien's surgery. Based on the terrible crick in her neck and the long shadows cast across the room from the lowering sun beyond the window she supposed she must have been sleeping for some time. Lucien must have noticed - he was the only one who could have tended to her arm - and yet he had chosen to let her remain undisturbed, chosen to let her rest, and she would have been grateful for it, had she not hear him say _damn it all_ at the same moment she realized the kindness he had done for her.

Smoothly Jean swung her legs off the table and rose to her feet. She swayed there for a moment; _I'm_ _just tired,_ she told herself. She wasn't dizzy or nauseous, did not have a pounding head or any other symptom that might serve as proof of the medicine Lucien had delivered to her, but she still felt fuzzy, almost half-asleep. When was the last time she had napped in the middle of the day? Jean could hardly recall. Perhaps when Jack was a baby; times had been hard and there was more work to be done around the farm than she and Christopher could handle on their own and young Christopher was barely two, and there had been a few days when exhaustion claimed her, and she fell asleep on their ancient settee with her sons in her arms. It would have been enough to make her smile, remembering her boys when they so small she could still hold them on her lap, had she not been so terribly worried about Lucien.

She followed the smell of the smoke and the sound of his grumbling curses to the kitchen, and paused in the doorway, mortified.

Once again he had stripped out of his jacket and rolled his shirtsleeves up to his elbows. Once again he had donned one of her floral aprons and tucked his tie into his shirt. The sight of him like that might have been sweet, endearing even, were it not for the ruined black lump of dough sitting on her biscuit pan atop the stove. She looked desperately towards the sink, hoping, but the bowl where her bread had been resting was no longer in evidence, and in its absence she found the answers she was seeking. He must have tried, then, to bake the bread himself, but the disastrous results of his efforts lay smoldering on the stove, and her heart sank like lead in her chest.

She had tried so _hard_ to get everything in hand. Terrible days were coming for her, days when she knew she would struggle even to get out of bed, and she had laid her plans, hoping to perform as many of her tasks as possible now, before the illness claimed her. Whipping up a batch of bread dough was not so very difficult, but it was time consuming; there was not enough time left for her to start again today, to make it, let it rise, shape it, let it rise again, and then bake it. There would be no toast for breakfast, and what if she felt too dreadful come the morning to manage another attempt? Oh, they'd manage without toast; there was plenty enough in the house for them to eat, but still. She felt as if she had failed, somehow, falling asleep instead of going about her usual chores, letting Lucien make a mess of things instead of guiding him away from trouble. What was to become of them in the days ahead, when her strength began to fail? _What good I am to anyone, if all I can do is sleep?_

"Oh, _Lucien,"_ she sighed, and at the sound of her voice he spun round to face her, looking somewhat sheepish.

"I think I may have miscalculated slightly," he said. It certainly looked that way to Jean; it appeared he'd taken the dough straight from its bowl, slapped it into the pan, and then placed it straight into a too-hot oven. Perhaps he had made some attempt at shaping it - it did look vaguely rounded - but it had torn and burst and flattened into a charred, inedible mess.

"What on earth were you thinking?" Jean asked him. She wanted to scold him for overstepping the bounds, for mucking about in matters that did not concern him, wanted to tell him in no uncertain terms that so long as she could stand baking and cooking would be her sole purview, and that his services were not needed. What did he pay her for, after all, if not to look after him? But to her horror her voice wobbled as she spoke, and tears gathered at the corners of her eyes, and she found herself quite suddenly overwhelmed.

It was simply too much. She hated herself for the weakness that had already sunk itself inside her bones, that required a herculean effort to endure something as simple as a trip to the shops, sent her falling asleep in the middle of the day. But that hate was laced with sorrow, knowing that she had not asked for this burden, knowing that there was nothing she could do to stop it. She felt fear, a sheer terror the likes of which she had not known since the day Christopher marched off to war; already her life seemed to be spiraling out of control, but there were no answers to the questions that plagued her, only _what ifs_ and _maybes_ that were too terrible to consider. She was terrified that this illness might be the end of her, as afraid of her own approaching uselessness as she was of the possibility of her death. It would be a kind of death on its own, she thought, not to be able to fend for herself, not to be able to stand proud and strong as she had always done. Grief and poverty and merciless gossips and a lifetime of indignity had not laid her low, but the fight before her was one she could not win. And through it all, through her doubts and her fear and her sorrow, there burned a low, simmering rage. She had been so _close_ to the life she had dreamed for herself, a modest but beautiful existence she had longed for with every piece of herself, and now it had all been snatched away, her every hope, her every yearning burned to ashes by a cruel twist of fate she neither understood nor invited.

And Lucien had burned the bloody bread.

"It's all right, Jean," Lucien said quickly, tossing the pan and its terrible black burden into the sink and wiping his hands clean on the apron. "The bakery's still open, I'll just pop in before dinner, and-"

Jean did not hear the rest of his excuses for as he spoke she began to cry in earnest, and she could not bear for him to see her in such a state. The very thought horrified her, Doctor Blake himself walking into the bakery to pick over the last of the day's wares because his housekeeper had been too busy sleeping to go about her business. Rather than face him she spun on her heel, and fled for the relative safety of her bedroom. The moment she stepped inside she kicked off her shoes and curled up on her bed, closing her eyes tight against the tears that threatened to drown her.

* * *

 _Well, now you've made a right mess of things, haven't you, Blake?_ He though ruefully as he watched Jean stomping away, her shoulders shaking as she wept. It had started off innocently enough; he had taken the dough from its bowl, and shaped into a fair approximation of a round loaf. He had placed the loaf on the same pan Jean used for biscuits, and slipped it into the oven. He had intended to wait in the kitchen while it baked, to make sure it didn't burn, but then he supposed that it would probably take quite some time, and he had gone off to fetch a glass of whiskey from the drinks cart in his study, and he had been distracted by a pile of mail on his desk, and then he had lost all track of time, and then. Well, then everything had fallen apart.

What he couldn't understand, though, was the powerful reaction Jean had to the sight of him in the kitchen. He would have thought she'd laugh at him, or scold him perhaps; he had not envisioned tears, or the look of utter desolation upon her face. It was only a bit of bread, and this disaster could be remedied easily enough.

Couldn't it?

The thing was, though, he had never actually seen Jean cry before. She had wept, when he told her of the cancer, but only once he'd left the room, only when she was certain that she was alone and would not be observed. That reaction was understandable, given the circumstances; anyone would have wept, to receive such news. Other than that, though, she had always been steady, proud, unbendable. She was hardly the sort of woman to fall apart at the slightest provocation. A bit of burnt bread shouldn't have been enough to make her weep. And yet it had done, and he stood alone and bemused in the kitchen, trying to work out why.

It seemed to him the afternoon had gone quite well, all things considered. Jean had been able to enjoy a bit of normalcy in the kitchen, and then she had seemed comfortable enough during treatment, had even fallen asleep listening to Lucien prattle on about his travels. It was too soon for her to be feeling any adverse effects from the medication. But, he realized as he stared morosely at the charred remains of his disastrous foray into baking, it was not too soon for her to be feeling other things instead. The hysterectomy would be playing havoc with her hormones, and there was, of course, the general distress that would come with her diagnosis and the beginning of her treatments. Perhaps it wasn't the bread at all, or at least not only that, which had so upset her.

But what then could he do to help her? There were some supplements he could suggest which might make the side effects of the hysterectomy more bearable for her, but it wasn't as if he could return her womb to her, or take the cancer from her. If he could have done either he would have already. All he could do was continue to treat her illness, which in turn would only make her feel worse. He had thought that he might lighten her load by taking over some of her tasks, but she'd been waspish when she found him cooking breakfast, and she'd damn near gone to pieces when she'd seen what he did to her bread. Perhaps, then, that was not the best approach to take with Jean. If only he'd realized it sooner, perhaps they wouldn't be in this mess.

For a moment he deliberated; the first time he'd sent Jean fleeing from the kitchen a cup of tea and a few well-placed words had worked wonders. Would they again? There were fresh biscuits in the tin, and it wouldn't take long to heat the kettle. He could take her a cup of tea and a biscuit, and beg her forgiveness, tell her that he'd realized the error of his ways, but truth be told he was actually rather concerned that his intrusion into her private domain just now would only upset her further. Perhaps she just needed a moment to gather herself, and perhaps he ought to give it to her.

And besides, time was against him; if he meant to make it to the bakery that evening he'd need to leave at once.

Thus resolved he slipped out of the apron and into his jacket, and departed at once. It was a short drive to the bakery on Lydiard Street, and their door was still open when he arrived. The man behind the counter seemed surprised to see him - actually, people seemed to be surprised to see him everywhere he went, as if they believed him to be more legend than man - but mercifully did not try to chat with him as he studied the paltry offerings still available at this time of day.

He still didn't know, really, what sort of bread Jean had intended to make. Erring on the side of caution, then, he selected a cob, two baguettes, and a somewhat lopsided sandwich loaf. Surely one of those would suit her purposes, he thought.

"Anything else?" the man behind the counter asked as he wrapped Lucien's selections in crinkly brown paper.

Lucien surveyed the case for a moment. It might be nice, he thought, to come home with something special. A little treat for Jean, by way of apology for his earlier missteps - or a little treat for himself, if she spurned him entirely.

"The pain au chocolat, please," he said. It was not the sort of thing Jean would have made herself, was not the sort of thing she ordinarily purchased for the household, but it was not so grossly extravagant as to offend her. He hoped.

"How many?" the baker asked him.

There were perhaps a half-dozen arranged on a little platter inside the case. He really only needed three, he supposed, one each for himself and Jean and Mattie. But evening was coming on, and the shop would close soon, and he didn't know when next he'd be able to duck out and make such a purchase.

"I'll take the lot," he told the man.

There was rather a lot riding on those little pastries; Lucien hoped they would be equal to the task of soothing Jean's ire, and preserving peace in his household, at least for one evening.


	23. Chapter 23

After a few terrible minutes spent trembling, curled up in the center of her bed in her new room in the studio, the storm of Jean's weeping passed, and left in its wake a dreadful sort of embarrassment. It wasn't her way, to fall to pieces at the slightest provocation, but she had so far today endured more than her fair share of discomfort and distress, and it had all become too much to bear. As she leaned back against her pillows, taking several fortifying breaths and trying to calm the pounding of her broken heart, a miserable voice echoed in the back of her mind; _how much worse is it going to get?_ Was this only a herald of worse trials to come? At that moment she felt quite fine, felt very much herself, if a bit sheepish about the way she'd wept over burnt bread. The day was coming, though, when she would not be feeling _fine_ at all; _what will become of me then?_

The truth was that she did not know, really, what the future held or how on earth she would face it, but she was determined to do so with her head held high. She could not spend the rest of her life in hiding, she told herself as she stared up at the ceiling, at Lucien's gently sparkling flecks of gold. _I have not been broken yet,_ she told herself. _I will not be broken now._

And so then, determined not to be laid low by illness or her own uncertain heart, Jean once more rose to her feet, and went to examine her reflection in the mirror above her dressing table. Her eyes were a bit puffy and her hair a bit flat, but with the help of a fresh coat of lipstick and some fluffing for her curls her appearance improved dramatically. Jean reclaimed her shoes from the place where she had somewhat childishly kicked them off by the door, and straightened her skirt.

 _You can do this,_ she told herself. She would go back out to the kitchen, and see about supper. Heaven only knew what had become of the roast and the vegetables she'd laid out before her treatment began, but she was certain she could salvage them, and set them both to warm while she tried to undo the catastrophe with the bread. There was not time enough to devote to preparing a fresh loaf for the morning's toast, but she could at least clean up the mess that Lucien had made, and set the table for supper. Mattie would be home soon, and they would sit down to eat together at six o'clock, the way they did every night, come hell or highwater. Jean would not be deterred.

She set out from her bedroom at once, closing the doors of the studio gently behind her. Lucien was nowhere to be found, not in the parlor or the sitting room or the kitchen, and his surgery was too silent for her to believe he was in residence there. Before she'd left him he'd made some noise about going off to the bakers, and she supposed he must have done. That was all for the good; he knew he had made a mistake, poking his nose in where he wasn't needed, but he had also set about correcting his mistake at once, and earned forgiveness for himself in the process.

 _He and I are going to have to have a chat,_ Jean thought as she scraped the charred remains of the disastrous bread into the bin. Things would go much easier for them both, she thought, if they established some ground rules, as it were, if she told Lucien in no uncertain terms that while she appreciated his desire to be of assistance it would be best for everyone involved if he did not attempt to bake again. He was a clever man, and perhaps with a bit of coaching he might have made a serviceable baker, but his just rushing off, recklessly, with no idea what he was doing, was of no help to her at all.

And of course she _did_ appreciate him, the kindness inherent in the gesture, however poorly that gesture had been executed. With her mind clear, now, Jean could see that he had not been trying to take her work from her, or otherwise acted out of disapproval for her idleness. It would have been much easier for him to simply wake her, rather than sort things out on his own, but he had chosen not to, and in that choice Jean caught a glimpse of the gentleness that lived within his heart, the gentleness that he so often hid from the world. Jean knew a thing or two about that, the impulse that could drive a person to hide what they perceived as their vulnerabilities, but she knew, too, that he wept in the night, sometimes, that he received frequent letters from Hong Kong that often precipitated that weeping, that his own trembling hands had painted dark memories across the pages of his notebook in charcoal. He could be brusque and selfish, could be drunk and reckless, could be so many things, but he had an artist's heart, like his mother's, and he had shown her such kindness. Had renovated his mother's studio, so long kept closed, just for her, and set aside time in his day to care for her, and let her sleep when she ought to be working.

When she thought about that kindness now, now that the weeping had left her and her thoughts were somewhat clearer, she felt a strange sort of stirring within her heart. She had seen Lucien display kindness toward his patients, of course, but she had never seen anything quite like _this._ Like this overt display of care, this determination to help in any way, in every way that he could. Rushing into Jean's hospital room, insisting he take over her treatment, championing her and ensuring she had a comfortable place to rest, this was more than speaking gently to Nell Clasby of an afternoon. It was, she thought, the action of one friend, coming to the aid of another.

Were they friends now? She asked herself. A few weeks before she had thought him cold and unbearable, and now she was beginning to think that he was instead dear and well-intentioned. He had spoken to her son and to Ruby, kept her family informed and done so in a way that made young Christopher proclaim solemnly _the Doc seems like a good bloke,_ which was, Jean knew, the highest sort of praise her rather serious son could muster. And he had charmed the sewing circle ladies, and supported Jean at every turn.

 _There are worse friends to have,_ she thought, smiling. In that moment she was not grateful for her illness - she could not, would not _ever_ be grateful for it - but she _was_ grateful for the opportunity to see Lucien Blake in a new light, the chance to learn for herself that he was not quite so dreadful as she had initially believed him to be. Perhaps, she thought, he was due a bit of kindness from her in turn.

With such thoughts occupying her she set about scrubbing out the pan Lucien had damn near ruined, and checked the oven to make sure there was no further mess inside before setting the roast to warm. She placed the vegetables back on the stove, and started the kettle for a cup of tea, and fetched down the biscuit tin so they all might have one, after supper. She was just in the midst of setting the table when she heard the front door open, and a soft voice calling _Jean?_

"In here!" she answered as brightly as she could, and a few heartbeats later Lucien appeared in the doorway, carrying the basket she used for shopping on his arm. The wares inside were wrapped in brown paper, but from across the room Jean could see two baguettes peeking out the back of the basket, and several more lumpy shapes that had to be different kind of loaves, and her heart went out to him, for she realized at once that he must not have known what to choose, and so bought a bit of everything in the hopes that at least _something_ might have been right. It was a terribly sweet sort of gesture, she thought, and she felt a deep well of compassion for him, knowing that he had tried so hard to please her.

"What have you got there?" she asked him gently, and Lucien, looking a bit relieved to discover that she was neither weeping nor cross, marched across the room to join her in a moment.

"A bit of everything," he confessed, sitting the basket on the counter.

"Let's have a look, then," she told him with a little smile. The smile he showed her in turn was lovely in its sincerity.

Together they set about unpacking his wares; the baguettes would go quite nicely with their dinner, she thought, and she'd find some use for the cob, and the sandwich loaf, while a bit lopsided, would be perfectly adequate for the morning's toast. But then -

"What's this?" she asked him as she found another parcel sitting at the bottom of the basket. Honestly, she wondered, it was all very sweet, but how much bread did the man think they'd need?

"Oh, that," he said, somewhat lamely. To her surprise he ducked his gaze down to stare at his toes, and shifted a bit uneasily on his feet, as if he feared another storm of weeping might be in the offing. "I thought we could all use a little treat."

Curious, then, Jean opened the parcel, and found inside six little pastries, golden brown and flaky, a few of them with something dark just beginning to seep out at the ends.

"It's pain au chocolat," Lucien rushed to explain. "They're-"

"I know what they are," Jean told him primly. She had quite a few French cookbooks on her shelf, and she had perused them all. Just because she often prepared plainer fare, that didn't mean she didn't know a thing or two about the finer things in life. Though perhaps, she conceded in her heart, perhaps she did not know quite as much about fine things as Lucien did.

"They look wonderful." And they did, look wonderful, neat and pretty as much as they were no doubt delicious, and Lucien had bought them because he thought _we could all use a little treat._ Jean was no fool; she knew he had bought them because she was distressed, and he was searching for some way, any way, to make things up to her. She had half a mind to tease him for it, to remind him that there was a batch of fresh, perfectly lovely biscuits already in the tin, baked that very afternoon by her own hands, but in the end she chose instead to relent. He had endured enough trouble on her account over the course of the day, she thought, between joining her on the shopping trip, and the conversation they'd had with Grace and Victoria, and her treatment and her tears. Surely he'd earned a moment's peace for himself.

And he'd gone and bought her chocolate. It was the sort of thing Christopher used to do when she was cross; he would go to the cafe, or the florist's, return with a bouquet or a bit of chocolate for her and that sweet puppy dog expression on his face, and she would forgive him at once whatever slight he had dealt to her, and let him sweep her laughing off her feet. Only Christopher was gone, now, had been gone for so long, and it wasn't her husband bringing her chocolates by way of apology. It was Lucien.

"Chocolate is my favorite," she confessed to him softly. It was such a small thing, her preference when it came to sweets, but she was not much accustomed to discussing her own preferences. Oh, when it came to the running of the house, the keeping of the surgery, she did not hesitate to make her will known, but the other things, the smaller things, the things that belonged to _Jean,_ the woman, and not _Mrs. Beazley,_ the housekeeper, those things she kept to herself. Her favorite records, her favorite flowers, her favorite books, her favorite films; all the little pieces that made up her heart were closely guarded secrets, for it had been quite some time since she had encountered anyone who cared enough about her to ask. Lucien hadn't asked, now, might not even remember what she'd said the moment the conversation was through, but she'd wanted to tell him, anyway. She'd wanted him to know, and in the knowing, perhaps learn a little bit more about her. Over the last fortnight he had shown her so much of his heart, and she could not accept such a gift without giving him something in turn.

Lucien did not immediately answer, and so Jean turned to look at him, and found him watching her with a soft, warm smile playing across his lips beneath his beard.

"I shall have to remember that," he said.

And she knew that he would, and to hide the blush that stained her cheeks at the thought she swatted him gently with one of the empty bags the bread had been delivered in. "Go and get cleaned up," she told him. "Supper's nearly ready."

Recognizing that he had been dismissed Lucien gave her a little nod and left her standing there by the counter, with the faint scent of the bread wafting in the air around her and all sorts of strange, not entirely unpleasant thoughts swirling through her mind.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I always tell myself I don't need dates as chapter headings, and I always do. So, those are starting now.

_23 April 1959_

"We keeping you from something more interesting, Blake?" Matthew asked sourly from the other side of his desk.

Lucien lifted his head sharply, caught off guard by his friend's displeasure.

"Sorry?"

"That's the third time in as many minutes you've looked at your watch. Bloody thing's not going to tell us where Ron Jackson is, is it?"

There was nothing Lucien could do but stare at Matthew, aghast and feeling somewhat sheepish about the whole thing. No, his watch wasn't likely to hold the key to this particular mystery, but as the minutes passed the appointed hour for Jean's treatment drew nearer, and he was fretting about being tardy. Mrs. Beazley didn't approve of gentlemen who couldn't keep their appointments, doctors or otherwise, and he could not allow himself to be so distracted that he missed one of her treatments. There was a schedule he needed to keep to, had successfully managed to abide by for the last fortnight, and that schedule had to be his priority.

Only he hadn't told Matthew about Jean's illness, just yet. Oh, Matthew knew she'd been in hospital, had come round with a few of his constables in tow to assist with the renovations on the studio, but all he'd known then was that she was recuperating after her surgery. As far as Lucien was concerned it wasn't his place to tell anyone about the private battle Jean was fighting, but he'd have to tell Matthew _something_ to avoid offending the man further.

"I have an appointment this afternoon I can't be late for," he said carefully.

Matthew frowned.

"Well, let's get on with it then. I've got business to attend to, myself," he added, with a glance toward the door on the other side of the bullpen. The army had come to town in force, in preparation for Anzac Day, and Matthew's services, and that of his staff, were needed elsewhere. Not just for security on the day of the parade, but also to help join in the search for two deserters. Privately, Lucien wished the men the best of luck; leaving the Army was one of the best decisions he'd ever made. Right after joining it.

"Right," Lucien said. "Well, have you thought about looking at any of the regional hospitals?"

The police were hot on the trail of Ron Jackson, a sometime-boxer suspected of murdering poor Bert Prentice in his own morgue. Bert had been killed with one quick punch to the throat, a left handed blow of the sort not common among backstreet brawlers or even professional boxers, and Lucien wasn't quite certain this Ron Jackson, who had apparently dated young Mattie at some point, was their man. No, if Lucien had to guess, he imagined that whoever had killed Bert Prentice had a more detailed than average knowledge of human anatomy and the most efficient ways to end a life. The reason for Matthew's fixation on Ron Jackson was clear; looking for a trained killer, when the town was suddenly crawling with soldiers from all over and the brass was breathing down Matthew's neck, meant that this was shaping up to be an eventful Anzac Day, and not in the way anyone had hoped.

"You think he's been going around murdering mortuary assistants?" Matthew asked dryly.

"No, just selling autopsy instruments," Lucien said, trying not to be smug about it. "That's where I'd go."

Whoever killed Bert had taken his tools, too, and finding the tools seemed to Lucien to be the best means of finding the killer.

Matthew didn't answer him directly, just ordered young Danny off to check in at the hospitals, but that was enough for Lucien; his point had been made, his information delivered, and it was time for him to be off home.

"Don't you have somewhere to be?" Matthew asked pointedly, but before Lucien could respond Bill Hobart was calling out for Matthew from the doorway, and so they walked from the bullpen together, Matthew grumpy and Lucien dreadfully curious, wondering who could have come calling for Matthew, and left him looking so grim.

The answer waited for him in the corridor, and it was a most unexpected one at that.

* * *

"Jean?" Lucien called out as he stepped through the front door. When she didn't answer he frowned, hanging his hat on its customary peg by the door. It had been a strange day, and seemed to be growing stranger by the second; first the investigation into Bert's death, then the arrival of Derek bloody Alderton of all people, dropped right in the middle of Ballarat as if he'd been plucked from Lucien's memory and deposited there in front of him, older and greyer perhaps but as rangy and unreadable as ever. And now this; it was lunchtime, and Jean wasn't in the kitchen.

Grumbling to himself about how the world seemed to have gone mad he popped his head out the back door into the sunroom; no Jean.

 _What's brought Derek here?_ He asked himself as he went. _The deserters, it has to be. But he's an important man, now, surely they wouldn't want to worry him with this?_

Jean wasn't in the sitting room either.

 _There's something else going on here,_ he thought morosely. _Ballarat's a quiet town, Derek ought to be in Canberra for Anzac Day, not all the way out here._

She wasn't in the parlor.

_Maybe it's to do with the body that was taken from the morgue? But we don't even know whose body that was._

The door to the studio - Jean's bedroom, now - was slightly ajar, and so Lucien stepped through it, and felt all his concerns for Derek fading away in light of his concern for Jean.

She was at that very moment asleep on the leather sofa in front of the cold fireplace, her knitting in a jumble on her lap. As she rested she had thrown her head back against the arm of the sofa, revealing to him the elegant curve of her neck, her dark hair falling over her face. At some point she'd kicked off her shoes, and he found the sight of her bare feet - well, nearly bare, she was still wearing her stockings - strangely endearing. Somehow he'd never seen her without shoes on before, and he liked the thought of her comfortable, and happy here, in this place he had made for her.

That she had fallen asleep was no surprise to him; she'd had four treatments so far, and today's was meant to be the fifth. The medicine had begun to do its work on her, though she tried to hide her symptoms, answered him evasively when he tried to ask her how she was feeling. That she was tired, that she'd started to experience some nausea, these details he had gleaned through careful observation, rather than her own confession. The situation was likely to get worse, much worse, but for now she was keeping her chin up, and Lucien was grateful that she had not yet been laid low.

 _But she will be,_ he thought, looking down at her lovely face, peaceful in repose. _There will be days when she's too weak to get out of bed. She may experience difficulty concentrating, or remembering things. The nausea may grow so unbearable she won't be able to eat at all. Her hair will fall out._

As if of its own accord his hand reached out, gently brushed a lock of her soft hair back from her face. Those lovely curls, so perfectly set, were as much as part of her as the eyebrow she arched at him so effectively, bouncing in time to the movements of her head, the rising tide of her emotions, communicating her displeasure or merriment to him as the case might be. What would she look like, with no hair at all?

 _As beautiful as she looks right now,_ he thought, and smiled, just as her eyes fluttered open, and she found him staring down at her.

"Lucien," she said, not awake enough yet to admonish him for the invasion of her privacy. "Am I late?"

"No," he answered, unable to shake the smile that tugged at the corner of his lips, to see her so soft and unguarded in a moment such as this. "As a matter of fact, I am. Why don't I pop the kettle on while you get yourself sorted? We can have a cup of tea while we're in the surgery."

It was Jean's turn to smile, and his heart did a funny little flip in his chest at the sight; she smiled so rarely, these days. "That sounds lovely," she said.

And so Lucien left her there, turning his back on her as she stretched, lithe as a cat in the sun, and tried to get her bearings. Tea would be quite nice; they could settle into their customary places in the surgery, drink their tea, and have a chat. Strangely, Lucien had come to look forward to their afternoons together; it was not pleasant, exactly, administering a treatment that he knew would only make Jean feel dreadful, but it gave them an excuse to sit together quietly, and talk of many things. On this particular afternoon he found that talk was precisely what he needed; the missing soldiers, the death of Bert Prentice, Ron Jackson, the sudden reappearance of Derek Alderton after so many years of his absence, the ghosts of his past who always came walking on Anzac Day, these things rocketed round and round inside his mind, and he was desperate for a way to release them, and perhaps find some peace in the process.

* * *

In a matter of minutes Jean had slipped on her shoes, tucked away her knitting, sorted out her hair, and settled herself once more on the examination table in Lucien's surgery. A cup of tea sat steaming merrily on the sidetable; the tea was to be her reward for submitting once more to his poking and prodding. Oh, Lucien was always gentle; he was gentle now, as his fingertips pressed against her wrist, found her pulse and held steady there while his eyes focused on his watch, counting the beats of her heart as the seconds passed. His hands were not soft and smooth, as she had expected them to be; she had thought that a man like him, wealthy and educated, would have hands that spoke of a life of leisure, but not so Lucien's. They were quite broad, his hands, and strong, tanned from the sun, crisscrossed here and there with fine, silvery scars, and the skin of his fingers and his palms was worn and rough. From years of thorough washing in the surgery, no doubt, but perhaps from hard work, too; she had not forgotten the previous winter, when Lucien had taken it upon himself to chop wood for the fire. At first she'd though he was only being obstinate, but then she'd watched the bunching and flexing of his heavy arms as he worked, and conceded to herself that he was more than fit for the task.

"That's all in order," he said, and her gaze shot up to his face at once, searching him for some sign that he had noticed the way her own eyes had lingered on his hands. If he did he did not show it, only smiled and stepped away.

"Blood pressure, next," he said, and Jean dutifully held out her arm, let him fasten the cup round her bicep and do his work. It was strange, really, how very _not_ strange this had all become, letting Lucien touch her, letting him stand so close that she could catch a hint of sandalwood from his cologne beneath the smell of antiseptic that permeated the surgery. They had developed a sort of routine between them, and in the familiar exchanges Jean found some small comfort. It was nice, she thought, knowing what to expect. She had always feared the unknown.

"A bit low," he said as he unclasped the cup from round her arm. "But that's to be expected. Now, are you feeling all right?"

"Fit as a fiddle, thank you," she said primly. It was the first day that week she hadn't thrown up her breakfast, and Jean counted that a good thing, but she had been too tired to finish tidying up the sitting room. She'd decided to sit on the sofa and knit for a few minutes to let herself rest, and the next thing she knew Lucien was standing over her, rousing her from sleep. It wasn't the first time she'd fallen asleep in the middle of the day, but it was the first time he'd caught her like that in a fortnight, and she couldn't help feeling somewhat disappointed in herself, having been caught out in shirking her duties. Not that Lucien would ever accuse her of any such thing, she knew - he was always going on about her needing rest - but in her heart she could not abide her own failures, however small.

 _I shall just have to finish the sitting room this afternoon,_ she told herself. She'd learned the mornings after treatment were the worst, and rearranged her schedule accordingly. There was quite a list for her to see to today, once her time in the surgery was finished. But first this, sitting with Lucien, sipping her tea, watching him try to distract her while poison slipped slowly through her veins. She pushed the thought away, as she so often did; it was better to focus on the things she could control, she thought, rather than the things she couldn't.

"Are you quite sure about that?" Lucien asked, and Jean arched her eyebrow at him challengingly.

"Lucien, if I'm not feeling well I will tell you."

For a moment he looked as if he were about to protest, but then he wisely bit his tongue, and reached for the antiseptic.

"Right, then," he said, carefully cleaning the tender skin at the crook of her elbow, "let's get started."


	25. Chapter 25

_23 April 1959_

"Oh, how awful," Jean said softly from her perch on the examination table. She was sitting upright today, not reclining far enough to fall asleep where she sat. In her right hand she primly held a porcelain teacup, and her left lay limp by her side, a needle in the crook of her elbow attached to the bag of medication that hung on a stand just beside the table. The course of their conversation had gone straight to the mystery of the hour, and they might as well have been sitting together at the kitchen table, so pleasant and friendly was their conversation, were it not for the IV and bag reminding Lucien of their purpose here.

"And that's not all," he told her grimly. Already he had explained the murder of Bert Prentice, the missing body, the hunt for Ron Jackson, but what he had not told her, yet, was darker still, to his mind.

"The Army's on the hunt for a pair of deserters. Matthew says they want the lads found before Anzac Day. And they must be quite serious about it, because I ran into an old friend at the station today."

"Oh?" Jean asked. "I didn't think you had many of those."

Lucien wasn't entirely certain, but he thought she might have been teasing him. There was very little bite to her tone, in any case, and she was smiling at him over the rim of her teacup. She had woken from her nap in good spirits, and Lucien was cheered to see her in good humor, even as he fretted over Derek's sudden appearance in the town.

"Oh, I imagine there are rather a lot of things you don't know about me, Mrs. Beazley," he told her winsomely. "This particular friend is a man called Derek Alderton. He's a Major in the Army, and he's risen quite high in the bureaucracy since I saw him last."

"And when did you see him last?" she asked him curiously.

"Stepping off the dock in Adelaide," he told her, leaning back in his chair. When he closed his eyes he could almost feel the wind on his face, could almost see the expression of disappointment in Derek's eyes. "Maybe six years ago, now. Seven, perhaps. I'd decided I wanted to leave the Army. Derek didn't approve."

"I always thought you left the Army when the war ended," Jean said, and still her eyes watched him, full of questions. They hadn't talked about it much, what his war had been like, what hers had been like. It must have impacted her somehow; the war had shaken the very foundations of the earth, and surely, he thought, those rumblings had been felt everywhere, even in this lonely little corner of Victoria.

"No," Lucien said, smiling softly, sadly. "I was real Army, not a volunteer. I joined when I was young, spent most of my time in and around Malaya. When they liberated us from the camp they sent the volunteers home, but a lot of us old timers stayed on." _Those of us who could still stand,_ he thought to himself, but he did not speak those words to Mrs. Beazley, who was so far removed from the horror of those terrible days.

"I don't think you've ever mentioned that before," she said in a quiet voice. "The camp. Your father told me you were a POW, but he didn't say much about it."

Lucien found himself surprised, somehow, both at the realization that he'd never discussed his war service with Jean, and at the thought that his father _had._ They had been close, he knew, Thomas and Jean; she always spoke of him fondly, and honored his memory, did what she could to stop Lucien bringing disgrace to the good name of his father. That was one of the reasons he'd found her so disagreeable, in the beginning; the Thomas Blake he recalled was cold and distant and sometimes cruel, and he could not reconcile himself to anyone who had preferred the father to the son. And yet now he knew that Thomas had spoken to Jean of Lucien, sometime before infirmity left him paralyzed and mute; what had he said to her? And _why_ had he said it?

"It isn't the sort of thing one likes to discuss in pleasant company," he said. "I've found most people want to pretend as if it never happened at all."

_As if thousands upon thousands of men weren't marched to death on the Burma railway, as if I didn't watch my brothers starve and fester from disease, as if tens of thousands of our best and brightest had never been laid low and humiliated by the enemy._

"We prefer to dwell on our victories, rather than our failures."

After the war he'd seen a newsreel showing the celebrations in London and New York on V-E day, and felt a sick sort of churning in his stomach, knowing that even while Germany surrendered Japan had remained firm, and he and his compatriots had continued to languish in misery and grief. Victory in Europe had not been sufficient to stop the war, and what followed was, to his mind, one of the single greatest calamities of human history, the dropping of the bombs. _The Bombs_ , two words always spoken with reverence by the old soldiers who remembered, as if they were the only bombs that ever mattered. Maybe they were. If Japan had surrendered when Germany did, how many lives could have been spared? How might the very course of history been changed, had The Bombs never fallen, had humanity never seen, first hand, the true scope of destruction which men were capable of? There were some who counted The Bombs as victories, too, but Lucien wasn't one of them. Perhaps he would have died in Selarang, had those bombs never fallen, perhaps hundreds of thousands more lives would have been lost. _We cannot know what might have been,_ he told himself. _We can only know what is._

"It's easier to forget than to sit comfortably with grief," Jean said.

Lucien raised his head to stare at her, shocked by the sentiment as much as he was by the sorrow in her tone. Her bright eyes were faraway, somehow, as if she were looking out into a dim and murky past, just as Lucien himself was. With Anzac Day approaching, and the sight of Derek Alderton's face etched once more on his mind, he could not stop his mind from wandering down the shadowy roads of memory, and he wondered if Jean felt the same. He knew that her husband had died in the war, or at least supposed that he must have done; as he thought about it now he realized she'd never told him herself what had become of the man, the circumstances that had left her widowed and working in service to the Blake family.

"Did your husband serve?" he asked tentatively. It was a delicate question, he knew; Jean must have been of an age with him, he thought, a few years younger perhaps, and most people their age knew someone, had lost someone. Some folks were eager for a chance to talk about the past; most weren't.

"Yes," she said simply, sadly. "My Christopher volunteered." There was a pause, then, as she gathered her thoughts, and the name settled low in Lucien's gut. _My Christopher,_ such simple words, and yet spoken with such longing, even now, so long after his death. "He died on the Solomons."

Grief lanced through Lucien's heart, then. So she had lost her man in the war, been left at home with two children to raise and an empty bed. And so then, he realized, she must know, too, how it felt to carry horror within her heart; had people found it easier to look past her than to confront the truth of the wounds she bore? Was there anyone she could talk to about it, anyone who had cared for her, or had she been forced to carry on alone, holding her family together with only her two trembling hands?

"The Bougainville campaign?" he asked her. The Aussies had taken point in the second phase of that bloody offensive, late in 1944, and continued to fight until the end of the war. If her Christopher had died on the Solomons, Lucien thought it stood to reason it would have been then.

"Yes," she said.

 _He nearly made it,_ Lucien thought grimly. Likely the poor man had only missed the end of the war by a matter of months; maybe even a matter of days, if he'd been truly unlucky. What joy could his widow find in victory, knowing he'd been killed on some godforsaken island she'd never see, far from his home and the ones who loved him? And what could Lucien possibly say to her now; what comfort could be found, fourteen, fifteen years later, when most of the people around them preferred to pretend that the war had never happened at all, or if it had that it had been no more than a lark, a simple case of right and wrong, and right winning the day? There was very little that was right, Lucien thought, in Jean spending the last fifteen years alone.

"I lost my wife and daughter in the war," he told her, quietly. A heavy sense of sorrow had settled over the both of them, and he dared not speak too loudly, lest both their hearts be shattered. "We lived in Singapore, and when it became apparent that the Japs were coming, I thought they'd be safer with my wife's family in Hong Kong. But they attacked Hong Kong the same day they invaded Singapore. I was caught up in the fighting, and then I was taken prisoner. By the time the war ended, it was as if they'd just...vanished. No one knew where they'd gone or what had become of them."

And Jean knew how that might feel, he realized, the sudden, shocking realization that one was alone, and always would be. It was, he thought, a terrible thing to share in common, the loss of a spouse, the rending of a family. It made them kindred spirits in a way, for their hearts had both been shattered, and never put to rights.

"That's why you get all those letters from Singapore?" Jean asked him gently. She'd asked about them once or twice, the letters, indirectly, of course, and he couldn't help but think she was quite clever, putting it all together. Jean had a quiet way of observing everything, he'd found, and nothing ever seemed to get by careful gaze.

"Yes," he said, clearing his throat of the lump that had formed there, thick with grief. "I hired a private investigator several years back. So far he hasn't turned up anything."

"But he might," Jean said, and there was a warm sort of encouragement in her voice that left him powerless to protest. Faced with such optimism from anyone else he might well have lashed out, for he knew the folly and the pain of hope, but somehow he didn't mind it, coming from Jean. Some people believed that life was good and kind all the time, but he knew, now, that Jean was not such a person; she knew how life could sting and bite, and yet still she hoped for him, for his family, that their story might end in love, rather than further grief.

"He might," Lucien allowed. _Christ,_ Lucien hoped he might.

For a moment they were quiet, the pair of them, lost in their own thoughts of tragedy and lament, but it was Jean who brought them both back, Jean who rescued Lucien from his bitter memories, and presented him a more intriguing question.

"This friend of yours," she said. "Derek. You say he's come about the deserters? Don't you think it's strange that the Army is lurking around at the same time that someone, who you say was probably well-trained, killed Bert Prentice, and stole a body?"

"Do you know, Jean, I think it's very strange," Lucien agreed. "Do you know anything about Bert? About his family?"

"Oh, there's lots of stories about the Prentices," Jean said.

"What sort of stories?"

"The sort of stories about people who work in morgues."

Lucien laughed, and pressed her for details, and they spent the remainder of their time together in far more jovial way than they had begun it. By the time the hour was finished and Lucien gently removed the needle from her arm, he was feeling almost content.


	26. Chapter 26

_24 April 1959_

Jean was right; the day after treatment was worse, much worse. The morning had begun for her well before dawn, when she bolted for the private loo in her new suite and emptied the meager contents of her stomach. Trembling and weak as a kitten she'd made her way back to bed, and curled up beneath the duvet, shivering, until sleep claimed her once more. She slept most of the morning away, only vaguely aware of Lucien's presence when he came silently slipping through the doorway, pressed his palm to her forehead with all the tenderness of a father checking his child for a fever. When she woke the second time a glass of water and a bit of toast sat waiting for her on her bedside table. She consumed them gingerly, desperately hungry but uncertain of her body's response; she'd been right to be concerned, for she had no sooner swallowed down the last of the toast than she was, once more, racing for the loo.

She rallied around lunchtime, made up a sandwich for Lucien and a cup of tea with lemon for herself, smiled at him wanly across the table as he rambled on about the case. Something to do with that Sally Clements who kept ringing the surgery and nuclear tests in the bush and Lucien's old friend Derek; Jean didn't really follow what he was saying, and she didn't really care to. It was enough just to listen, to share her time and her tea with him, before he was bolting for the door, and she retreated once more to her bed.

Sometime around mid-afternoon she felt strong enough to make a second attempt at toast, and was unreasonably pleased when she managed to keep it down. Bolstered by that plain sustenance she laid a fine supper on the table, and ate it alone with Mattie, whose worried gaze Jean liked not one little bit. Yes, she was ill, of course she was, but she had never appreciated pity, and at present it was difficult to differentiate between pity and genuine care. With Mattie's help she did the washing up, and then watched as the girl disappeared into the night, off to assist Lucien with some madcap scheme at the Royal Cross. Jean wished them well; she was too tired to worry, at present.

Alone in the quiet of her bedroom she settled herself down upon the leather sofa with her best blue blazer, Christopher's service medals, a bit of polish and a rag. It would be Anzac Day tomorrow, and Jean never missed the parade. When she was young she had gone with her father, whose brothers had served in the Great War, and watched the emotions crossing his face as he recalled those who had not made it home. After the next war, her war, she had taken her own sons, marched with the other widows and children in honor of the men they'd lost, the husbands and fathers and brothers they'd never see again. Even now, so many years later, she felt a duty to do this thing, to walk where Christopher could not, to remind the world, and herself, that he had lived, once, this wonderful man she had once loved so dearly. Who would remember him, if not her? Their sons were grown and lost to the world, caught up in their own troubles, and had lived longer without him than with him. Their friends and neighbors had moved on, some of them dead, some of them distant, all of them changed. It was Jean who kept some piece of him in this world, Jean who wore his name and his ring, still, Jean who would wear his medals and by her very presence demand that others remember him as well.

 _I will walk,_ she told herself as she carefully cleaned his medals, one by one. Today she was weak and tired and only half-present, and tomorrow might be the same, but she was determined to do this thing, for him. Someone had to. Someone had to stand for him, the one her heart had loved so dearly, the one her soul still mourned for. It had been fourteen years since Jean learned of his death, and in all that time she had not forgotten him; she would not forget him now.

Distantly she heard the sound of the front door opening, but before she could call out to Lucien or Mattie, whichever of them it was, she heard the sound of voices, and her heart grew heavy in her chest. Two voices, male, low and deep, too far away for her to make out their words. One, she thought, was Lucien - she would recognize his voice anywhere - but the other she did not know, and that troubled her a great deal. Lucien had only gone to the hotel to keep the officers occupied while Mattie - working on intelligence Jean had given her regarding the layout of the Royal Cross - was to go up to their rooms and search for their boots. Why Lucien wanted their boots Jean still wasn't sure, but there had been nothing in the plan about _this_ , Lucien returning home with guests. He did not trust the men, Jean knew, and she did not think he would risk bringing such danger to their home so late in the evening.

What then should she do? What _could_ she do? She was weak and weary, and it might be that if she came stumbling out of the studio now she would be endangering them both. Lucien was a big man, a strong man, had been a soldier himself, and surely he knew how to handle a fight, but if his attention were divided, if he were trying to protect her, he might fail. But then again, her appearance might force his companion to be more cautious, not wanting to cause unnecessary carnage. Jean strained to listen, trying to discern just how grave the danger might be, and her eyes fell on Christopher's pistol, lying on the sofa beside her. She had taken it out, with the rest of his things, to clean it, intending to tuck it away once more when the time came to seek her bed, but now she was beginning to wonder if perhaps it presented a solution to her problem.

It wasn't loaded. Jean never cared much for guns; oh, she knew her way around a rifle, having grown up on a farm outside of town, but a pistol was something else, and unnecessary now that she lived in a fine house in the center of town. But the man with Lucien wouldn't know the gun posed no threat. Maybe the sight of it would be enough to stave off further trouble.

 _I'll just take it with me,_ she thought. _I'll just go and see, and if I have to pull it out I will._

That decided she rose to her feet, and very nearly collapsed again as black spots swam in front of her eyes and her legs threatened to buckle under her. Desperately she clutched at the back of the sofa for support, trying to breathe deeply until the racing of her heart calmed, until her head stopped swimming. When she was at last certain that she could stand unaided she lifted Christopher's pistol - _God help me,_ she thought, _it's heavier than I remember -_ and held it just out of sight behind her back, walking slowly out of her room.

She followed the sound of voices to the surgery, and it was there that she was met with a most terrifying sight.

* * *

Hannam had a good strong grip, and had the circumstances been different Lucien might have appreciated that about him, but as it was he was too focused on getting away to think how well trained the man must have been. The Sergeant's fist had closed tight around Lucien's throat, and no matter how he scrambled and clawed and struggled he could not get away. He could not breathe, could feel the delicate muscles and bones of his neck constricting, could see darkness rushing for him from the corners of his eyes. What a bloody way to go; he had survived hell and worse at the hands of the Japanese, only to be murdered in his own home by a man who wore the same uniform Lucien had once worn himself. Lucien would not give up, was determined to fight until the very last; he would not die before he'd brought the truth to Matthew, would not die while Jean slept on the other side of the house, while she still needed him, but panic was beginning to bite at him. Hannam had the advantage over him, and Lucien could see no way-

"Let him go," came the unexpected sound of a voice from the doorway, and as one Hannam and Lucien turned their attention there, equally stunned by the sight that greeted them. Jean, with her dark curls falling around her face, messy now that she'd let them out of their pins, wearing a pink satin pajama set beneath a soft blue robe. She swayed where she stood, her face pale and her whole body visibly trembling from the effort to keep herself upright, but the most shocking thing of all was that in her hands she held a gun, waving wildly in their direction.

Hannam did not release his hold on Lucien, but his attention was divided as he seemed to war with himself. The man must have been running calculations in his head; could he snap Lucien's neck before Jean fired a shot? Was he ready to murder both a fellow serviceman and a clearly unwell woman just to protect his terrible secret? Could he do it in such a way that could not be traced back to him? Murdering Lucien with his gloved hand would have left little evidence, but Jean would be more of a scrap; he'd not catch her on the back foot the way he had Lucien. If he hadn't been so bloody terrified, Lucien's heart would have burst with pride for Jean.

"You'll have to kill both of us to get away, Sergeant," Jean said in a tremulous voice, the shaking of her hands so fierce that Lucien could hear the gun rattling in her grip. "Are you prepared for that?"

Grimly Lucien thought that Hannam probably was, prepared to kill them both. It was such a brave, bloody stupid thing to do; she could barely hold that gun, let alone aim it properly, and if she did manage to get a shot off she'd be as likely to hit Lucien as Hannam. If only she'd stayed in her bed she might have been safe; Hannam might not have gone looking to see if anyone else was home, might not have even known that Lucien didn't live alone, but now she'd put herself square in his line of sight.

"My Christopher was a Sergeant, too," she said, her voice heavy with grief. Only the day before she'd spoken to Lucien of the man, told him of the husband she'd lost with a voice still full of sorrow, and he wondered, then, if Christopher would be as proud of her now as Lucien was himself. "This is his pistol," she said, brandishing it at them. _Oh, Christ,_ Lucien thought, _if that's his gun, what are the chances it even works? Bloody thing probably hasn't been used in years._ The situation was growing more dire by the second. "But he died on the Solomons. I wonder what he'd make of you."

Would it be enough? Lucien wondered. Would the reminder of all those brave souls, all their brothers-in-arms who'd sacrificed their very lives in service to the greater good be enough to change Hannam's mind, to stir up some regret in him? Would it make any difference at all?

For the span of a few heartbeats everything was quiet, and still, but then Jean stumbled forward, seeming to lose her balance as if her legs would not hold her a single second longer. Beside him Hannam jumped, caught off guard by her sudden movement; perhaps he worried she'd lose control of the gun and fire by mistake. Perhaps some deeper, better impulse compelled him to try to assist her. Whatever it was, it was enough; Lucien spun out of his grip, caught the back of his head in one broad hand, and bashed it down, quick, against the desktop. Hannam flopped on the floor, limp as a dead fish, blood at his temples, and did not move. It was sheer luck; Lucien never would have managed such a feat if Jean had not been there to distract his attacker. Satisfied that the man had been incapacitated - at least for the moment - Lucien left him where he was, and rushed across the room to Jean.

"All right, there?" he asked, looping his arm around her waist and hauling her hard against him, holding her up with his own strength now that hers had faded.

"Are you?" she asked. Her eyes were glassy, but still she clutched the pistol fast in her grip. All but dead on her feet, and she was worried about _him;_ what a woman she was! Lucien was quite certain he had never known her like.

"I am," he said, "thanks to you."

For a moment he simply stood, holding her; he could feel her shaking, soft and warm as she leaned against his side. It had taken a great deal of courage for her to do what she'd done, propelled into that room by the strength of her spirit, though her body nearly failed her, and he found within his heart such a sudden swell of affection and admiration for her that it nearly choked him.

"Come on," he said, gently, "let's get you to bed."

"You can't just leave him, Lucien," she pointed out. "What if he wakes up?"

She had him there. It was unlikely that Hannam would rise in the time it would take Lucien to walk Jean back to her bed, but if by some miracle he did, he could well make an escape - or come after them both - and that simply wouldn't do. But Lucien wasn't sure that Jean had strength enough to take herself off to bed, and he wanted to look her over, make sure she was all right, after the stress of the evening. He would not have her come to harm, not now.

"You're quite right," he said. "Here." Gingerly he led her back to his desk, and settled her in his chair, watching as she laid Christopher's pistol on the desktop. That she had held onto that gun, had cherished it, that piece of the man she'd lost, grieved him; how long had she suffered, alone and unloved? How much longer still? Would Christopher have wanted this for her, to cling to his memory as her youth faded and her life grew small and quiet, or would he have wanted her to find a way to live again? Lucien couldn't say.

With Jean settled he reached into his desk drawer, and pulled out two pairs of handcuffs. With one set he secured the still-unconscious Hannam's hands behind his back, and then for good measure he cuffed one of the man's ankles to the desk. _That ought to hold him,_ Lucien thought. At least long enough for him to get Jean to bed, and ring Matthew for reinforcements.

"Right, then," he said, straightening up once his work was done. When he turned to face Jean he found her leaning back in his chair, her hands lying limp in her lap, her eyes closed and her breathing unsteady.

"Jean?" he called out, suddenly terrified, rushing to her side. With one hand he felt for her pulse, fingertips tracing the elegant lines of her neck, and breathed a sigh of relief when he found it, a bit faster than he would have liked but there nonetheless.

"Lucien?" she said, her voice a bit hazy, her eyes still closed. "I'm really quite tired."

"I know," he said, only just managing to stop himself from adding _love_. "Let me."

It was not so very difficult. Jean was a small woman, and exhaustion had made her pliant, and it wasn't the first time he'd done this for her. Carefully Lucien looped one arm round her back, and tucked the other behind her knees, and then he lifted her bodily from the chair. Jean's head flopped against his shoulder, her arms clutching at him weakly, and he could not help but smile at her, a smile she never saw, as he carried her from that place, and back to her room. The covers were already pulled back on her bed, and so Lucien laid her down there gently, watched as her head sank back against the pillows, as a ghost of a smile flitted across her face. He tugged the duvet over her, and stood for a moment, watching, but she had already fallen asleep, and seemed to be well. His attention was needed elsewhere, however much he might have wished to stay.

In silence he turned off the lamp by her bed, and crossed toward the sofa, intent on turning off that lamp, as well. He paused there; Jean had laid a crisp blue blazer across the back of the sofa, and a pile of service medals lay gleaming softly in the dim light of the lamp. Christopher's medals, he supposed, pulled out, like his pistol, in anticipation of Anzac Day. All that was left, now, of the man who had once loved her.

"Thank you," Lucien said, softly, thinking of Jean, and her Christopher, of soldiers and widows and battles long since lost, and those yet to be fought.

With a sigh he turned out the lamp, and went out to ring for Matthew.


	27. Chapter 27

_25 April 1959_

Lucien slept late the following morning; he'd spent most of the night at the station with Matthew, sorting through the mess left behind by Derek Alderton and his pet Sergeant Hannam, and by the time he shuffled off home his mind was too full of ghosts to let him sleep. Derek, _bloody_ Derek, a man Lucien had once counted a brother, his best mate in all the world, the only reason he'd survived hell in Selarang, had been instrumental in the death of Bert Prentice and the stealing of the deserter's body, had orchestrated the entire cover up and blithely lied to Lucien's face, feigning piety and disapproval for Hannam's actions, as if Lucien didn't know the orders had come from Derek himself. It had been years since they'd last seen one another, but still Lucien found it hard to reconcile the man he knew with the one he'd seen in the station that night. Duty had turned to poison in Derek's veins, made him callous and cruel. He was firmly toeing the company line, now, but there had been a time when Derek would have been on the side of the deserters, would have cursed the army for turning its back on its own men, would have questioned the decision to pursue the development of nuclear weapons and the chaos they would cause.

Hadn't there? That was the question that troubled Lucien the most; were his memories of his old friend as true as he wanted them to be, or had his own opinions and the passage of time colored over Derek's less admirable qualities? Had Derek always possessed this authoritarian streak; had Lucien just needed him too much to see it, when they were young and wholly dependent on one another? _Did I ever know the man at all?_

The sun rose while still Lucien sat brooding in the darkness of his study, thinking about Hannam's attack and Jean's brilliant performance, but as it did Lucien shuffled himself off to bed. It was Anzac Day, and a Saturday besides, and so he had no patients to see, had nowhere to go and nowhere to be, and his bed was infinitely preferable to further introspection. His sleep was light and troubled, however, troubled by dreams of Hannam's hand around his throat, only in the dreams Hannam wore Derek's face, instead. In the dreams Jean came rushing to his defense as she had done in life, but this time she crumpled to the ground, lifeless and spent, and Lucien woke around noon with a howl of anguish on his lips. He'd get no more sleep that day, and he knew it.

Grumbling to himself, then, he rose slowly to his feet, and shrugged into a clean suit. His mouth tasted of bile and his hair was rumpled, but he would not have Jean see him in such a state. If in fact she were up and about at all; after the exertion of the night before, she might well have been sleeping. Guilt washed over him in waves, as he realized that he had been so caught up in his own personal turmoil that he had forgotten the promise he'd made to himself to look in on her in the morning. What if she were unwell? What if she had need of him, but he'd been too consumed with self-pity to help her? He'd never forgive himself, he knew, if something happened to her now, not now when she was under his care, when she had risked everything to save his very life.

The need to see her overwhelmed him, and he rushed from that place distracted and determined, and he very nearly bowled her over as he came racing out of his bedroom only to find her in the corridor. He skidded to a halt almost comically, his hands reaching at once for her hips to steady himself as much as to avoid calamity, the world spinning unpleasantly beneath his feet.

"Lucien!" Jean cried, clearly surprised, though whether it was his sudden appearance or the warmth of his hands on her hips that shocked her Lucien couldn't say. She wore a neat, dark skirt, well-fitted as always, and her sensible suede pumps. Over her blouse she wore the blue blazer he'd seen in her sitting room the night before, Christopher's medals gleaming proudly on her chest. Her dark hair was carefully styled, and a plain blue hat had been neatly pinned atop her perfect curls. The color was high in her cheeks, her eyes blue and bright and brilliant, the red bow of her lips drawn into a little _O_ of surprise, and the curve of her hip fit perfectly within the cradle of his palms. As he touched her now he could not help but recall how it had felt to carry her in his arms the night before, the warmth of her, the weight of her against him, the gentle smile that had tugged at her lips as he carefully tucked her into bed. Altogether she made the most astonishing sight, he thought, standing proudly on her own two feet and not trembling as she had been the night before; she was, completely, lovely.

"I do beg your pardon," he said. His hands lingered for a moment more before he remembered himself, and snatched them quickly away.

"Are you off out, then?" he asked. It was a foolish question, and he knew it. Of course she was leaving; Jean wasn't in the habit of wearing her hat in the house, and those medals spoke plainly of her intended purpose.

"Yes," she said, softly. Yes, she had found the strength to rise from her bed even as Lucien lingered in his own, _yes,_ she had pinned those medals to her chest and dressed with great care, intent on marching with the other widows and old soldiers in the Anzac Day parade.

"Will you be marching today?" As she spoke she cast a wary eye over him, and her hand lifted for a moment, as if she meant to reach for him, perhaps to straighten his tie or smooth his lapel, but she seemed to think better of it, and dropped her hand back down to her side.

"No," Lucien said, the word bitter in his mouth. "No, I don't think I will." He never did. It never seemed right to him, somehow, to celebrate his war service. When he joined the army he had been young, and reckless, spoiling for adventure and longing to distance himself from the staid life his father wanted for him. When war came he had done his duty, not so much for love of country as for love of his brothers-in-arms, and he had languished, forgotten and starving and wretched, for three long years before the Poms came to set him free. Only he wasn't free, then, not really; his heart was full of grief, and his life still belonged to the service. The army that had abandoned Lucien and his men to die still required their pound of flesh from him, but resentment had begun to fester in his heart, and the stain of that resentment remained, even now, so many years later. He did not want a celebration, did not want to spend this day thinking on all that he had lost, all that he had suffered, the cost of victory purchased in blood. What he wanted, more than anything, was a drink.

"And I'm not sure you should either," he added. "You had rather a lot of excitement last night, and, well…"

His voice trailed off, his certainty shaken by the fierce look of determination in Jean's eyes. Perhaps now was not the moment to remind her of her physical limitations; if not for Jean, weak and trembling as she had been, Lucien would be dead by now. Perhaps it was not his place, to say what she ought and ought not do. It was only that he was worried about her, desperately, truly; he would have much preferred she spend the afternoon wrapped in her robe in front of her fireplace. It was a cool autumn day, and he could bring her a cup of tea, take her blood pressure for his own reassurance. They could chat together, quietly, and pass the time far more comfortably than out in the parade.

"I've never missed the parade," Jean told him firmly. "And I don't mean to now."

As she spoke a certain sparkle seemed to shine in her brilliant eyes, as if she'd just stumbled across a plan that might both give her what she wanted, and soothe his concerns. In an instant Lucien realized what she meant to say, but she did not give him the chance to stop her.

"You could come with me," she suggested. Jean Beazley did not wheedle, and she did not beg; she merely presented her preferences as if they were the most natural thing in the world, as if only a fool would disagree. "You could be with me as my doctor, in case something happens. And you could wear your medals, too, in case anyone wonders why you're there."

Yes, Lucien imagined that would suit her purposes quite well. Jean was an old fashioned sort; the Anzac Day celebrations would be important to her, a way to recognize the service of the man she loved, and the men who had served with him, a time honored tradition of respect and gratitude. But she likewise would not want anyone to think she was not capable of walking on her own, or worse, give the gossips more reason to whisper about what she and Lucien were getting up to. If he wore his medals, no one would question his presence in the parade. And it would remind his neighbors that he had been a soldier, once; maybe that would make Jean proud, to see people acknowledge what he had done, the selfless duty he had performed.

In truth, it sounded to him like a positively ghastly way to pass the afternoon. He was in need of a drink and a bit of breakfast, and he had not touched his medals in years, choosing instead to keep them locked in his trunk, heavy memories of grief and wretched disappointment he did not wish to revisit. Jean wouldn't see it that way, he knew, and he didn't have the first idea how to explain it to her.

And of course he was worried about her going out alone; what if she grew too tired to carry on? What if she stumbled, what if she needed help to make her way back home? Her pride would not permit her to admit to any weakness, and he wondered if she might overextend herself in an effort to hide just how much of a toll her illness had begun to take. The woman had been prepared to face down a known murderer to protect him; perhaps he could endure the unpleasantness of a parade in order to return the favor.

"I really ought to have something to eat," he said slowly, trying to work his way through the problem. Perhaps she'd let it go at that; if she meant to make the start of the parade she'd need to leave now, and perhaps she'd allow him to use breakfast as an excuse to avoid further conversation on the topic. Perhaps she didn't really want him to go at all; perhaps she had spoken in haste, and would be grateful for the excuse to leave him.

To his surprise, however, she smiled, and reached into the pocket of her jacket, pulling out one shiny green apple.

"I thought you might be hungry," she said.

Lucien knew when he'd been beaten, and so he accepted the apple, grinning, to think that she had bested him, to think that she cared enough for him to want to feed him, to put that apple in her pocket just for him.

"Lead on, then," he said, gesturing toward the door with his free hand.

"Do you want to fetch your medals?"

He considered it for a moment; Jean might feel more comfortable if he wore them, he knew, might feel more at ease with people seeing them together if he wore some outward sign of his purpose, but in his heart he could not bear the thought of wearing them, and it would take too much time to retrieve them besides.

"Not today, Jean," he said, and she did not press him. Instead she stepped back, and they walked out from the house together, Lucien munching on his apple as he went. He drove them both to the parade, spared the need to make conversation as he juggled his breakfast and the steering wheel, and at last they arrived with everyone else at the start of the parade route. They disembarked from the car together, and he watched, bemused, as every person they passed greeted Jean by name. Some of the women rushed to kiss her cheek, to chat with her briefly, and some of the men doffed their hats as she went by. _Like a queen in her garden,_ Lucien thought; everyone knew Mrs. Beazley, and everyone adored her, and he could not blame them, for he felt the same admiration every time he looked at her.

They joined the parade somewhere in the middle of the pack, and walked along together beneath a weak autumn sun. Bunting and streamers hung from the trees and the storefronts, and children ran laughing along the pavement, and everyone fell silent when the old timers passed. Through it all Jean never wavered, her stride true and strong, her chin lifted high. How many times had she walked this route, Lucien wondered as they went; how many years had she stood in this crowd, thinking of the man she'd loved, the man she'd lost? Would that man be proud to see her now, remembering him still? Lucien rather thought he might have been; any man should have been proud, to have such a wife. Fierce, and brilliant, and brave, Jean was the best among women, and Lucien was proud to stand beside her.

As they neared the end of their route Jean reached for him, quite unexpectedly, curled her hand round his elbow and held onto him. To steady herself, he thought; she must have been exhausted. When had she last eaten? Had she managed to hold anything down at breakfast, or did she have nothing in her belly but a cup of weak tea? Ought they stop, let her rest?

He looked at her sharply, but her cheeks were flushed with vigor, and her eyes were gazing straight ahead, hardly acknowledging that she had touched him at all. What was she thinking, he asked himself, in this moment meant for reflection, this ritual she had so often undertaken alone, and now endured with him beside her? Was she glad of his support? He supposed she must have been, or she would not have reached for him at all; Jean was too proud, and he knew she'd rather stumble than lean on a man she did not care for. And so Lucien covered her hand with his own, his warm palm against her cool fingers, and offered her what comfort he could as they carried on, marching in time to a lively band on a beautiful afternoon.


	28. Chapter 28

_6 May 1959_

It had been another dreadful day for Jean. She was doing her best not to complain; what was the point in whining, she asked herself, when Lucien and Mattie both knew that she was unwell, and suffering for the treatment Lucien administered, however kindly the thing was done? Their care and compassion could not stop the nausea, the blinding headaches, the shivers, and neither could their pity, and so she tried her best to keep the worst of her discomfort to herself. They both had other patients to tend to, Mattie and Lucien, and she would not have either of them stuck at home fretting over her when there was nothing to be done.

Lucien looked in on her in the morning, the way he always did the morning after treatment, and Jean had told him she was feeling _quite well, all things considered -_ all things being that she'd had a course of medication the day before, and spent most of the night curled over the loo in her private bathroom - and asked him to light the fire before he went out to assist Matthew and Danny in their latest case. A drunk driver, killed when his car crashed, by the sound of it; _better Lucien than me,_ Jean had thought, and left him to it. The fire was cheerful, and warmed her hands when she found the strength to go and stand in front of it. Sometime around noon she made herself a few pieces of toast and tossed a fresh log onto the embers, and then curled up in the corner of her leather sofa, her legs tucked up beside her and her knitting on her lap. She did not feel up to standing for any length of time, but she could knit at least, slowly, her eyes watching the dancing of the flames while she huddled in her robe, desperate for a warmth that seemed to elude her.

 _It's not so bad as all that,_ she tried to tell herself. It did not seem that she'd lost much, if any, of her hair as yet, or at least not enough so she'd notice when she studied her reflection in the mirror, though the last time she'd washed it she'd found more stray strands than she was accustomed to. The nausea seemed to have settled, now, and she was keeping her toast down, and it was comfortable here by the fire, even if a chill seemed to have settled into her very bones. She did not feel up to a journey into town today, but perhaps by Sunday she might feel strong enough to go and sit in a pew in Sacred Heart. That would be nice, she thought; it would be nice, to go and sit among her friends and neighbors, to quiet their whispers about her condition, to show them that she could still stand on her own two feet. That would be quite nice indeed.

Dimly she heard the sound of the front door opening, and someone puttering around in the kitchen. She'd left the door to her suite open, so that she might hear when the other tenants of the house made their way home, so that they might know she was not opposed to company, should they want to drop in and say hello. Given the sounds of running water from the tap and the soft clink of china, she supposed it must have been Mattie, home from her rounds and gone to make a cup of tea, and that was all for the good. Perhaps Mattie might like to come and sit on the sofa with her, and perhaps they could chat for a while, and perhaps then Jean would not feel as if she had wasted the entire day in idleness.

A few moments later she heard the expected knock upon her door, and smiled as she answered.

"Come in!"

She did not turn to look, and so she was quite surprised when she found Lucien, and not Mattie, stepping into view. Lucien, wearing only his shirt and tie, his waistcoat and jacket gone and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, a haggard look upon his face and a silver tray laid with a full tea service in his hands. _That_ was most unusual; he could be prevailed upon to bring her a cup of tea from time to time, but now he had brought the whole pot, and the sugar and the milk, too, and two cups besides.

"Do you mind if I join you?" he asked.

"Not at all," she answered, gesturing to the empty expanse of sofa beside her. There was worry in his warm blue eyes, and his soft lips were turned down in the ghost of a frown, as if he had faced some great unpleasantness when he left the house, and come to her for relief. In her heart Jean hoped he might find it here.

Deftly Lucien poured two cups of tea, a single cube of sugar for her and more sugar than was wise for him. He handed her cup off wordlessly, and then collapsed with a sigh onto the far end of the sofa, holding his tea cup in one hand and rubbing at his temples with the other. It was plain something was bothering him, but Jean did not press him; she only took a sip of her tea, knowing he would tell her the truth in his own good time.

"Let me start by saying, Danny is going to be absolutely fine," Lucien said slowly, and Jean's heart began to race in her chest, her hands trembling so fiercely she was forced to place her teacup down on the sidetable lest she spill it all over her lap. No doubt he had intended those words to be reassuring, but Jean found no comfort in them whatsoever.

"Lucien," she breathed, terrified, and he turned to face her, his knee brushing her toes where they dangled off the edge of the sofa, his expression earnest and grieved.

"The man who died, he wasn't drunk. He was bitten by a snake. Matthew sent Danny to search the car, and Danny was bitten as well."

How could Danny be _absolutely fine_ if a bite from that snake had killed this other fellow? Tears gathered in the corners of Jean's eyes, and she struggled to draw breath. From his earliest days Danny had spent more time in her home than in his mother's, was as dear to her as her own sons, the only one of her three boys who'd stayed in town and still popped in to see her every day. Sweet Danny, with his gentle teasing, his easy smile, his kind spirit; she loved that lad, and she could not bear the thought of him hurt, and too far away for her to comfort him.

"We were able to give him antivenom, and he is recovering now, Jean. But I'll not lie to you, it was a very close call."

" _We_ ," she repeated faintly. "Did you treat him, Lucien?"

"I was at the hospital when they brought him in. The doctors there weren't certain what type of snake it was, and without knowing the sort of snake, it would have been impossible to administer antivenom. The risk of giving him the wrong sort and killing him faster would be too great."

"But you knew what it was, didn't you? You solved the riddle."

In the flickering light of the fire she watched his face, and found her answer there. It was Lucien who had saved the boy, found the answer that no one else could. A few months before she had thought him crass and selfish and unbearable, but at every turn he surprised her, proved to her time and time again that his heart was good, that she was better off for having known him. First he had saved her own life, discovering the cancer and dedicating himself to her treatment, and now this. It seemed to Jean she owed him two lives, and so far had only paid him back for one.

"Thank you, Lucien," she breathed.

A small, tired smile flickered across his face. Though he had been the one to save the day - once again - though he had been the one clever enough to do what no one else could he did not seem proud or boastful, was not made arrogant by his success. He seemed only relieved, and exhausted, even as she was.

"I want to go and see him," Jean added, dispelling the momentary silence that had fallen as they looked at one another in the firelight.

"Tomorrow perhaps, eh?" Lucien answered gently. "Danny needs his rest, and I imagine you do, too. Have you eaten anything today?"

Ordinarily Jean might have bristled at his concern and the implication she wasn't looking after herself, but she was too relieved at knowing Danny was alive, and too grateful to Lucien for saving him, to be cross.

"I had a bit of toast," she said, gesturing towards the plate still sitting on the low table in front of them, and the half a slice of toast that still lingered there.

"Not enough, by the looks of it," he answered good-naturedly. "How about some eggs, eh? Or an apple?"

It was very sweet of him to offer, but Jean was unaccustomed to being waited on hand and foot, and she didn't relish the thought of her employer cooking a meal for _her._ He'd already done it once, and she had taken pains to ensure he'd need not do it again, had taken to cooking like mad on Sundays so that there would always be a bit of food in the house, ready to be heated up on the evenings when she was too tired to cook. There was still a bit of stew in the refrigerator and a perfectly fine loaf of her good dark bread in the tin for Lucien's supper, but she wasn't sure she could face such a heavy meal. A few bites of egg would probably not go amiss, though.

"Please, Jean," Lucien said, very softly, as she still mulled it over. "Let me look after you."

 _You've done enough already,_ Jean wanted to say. Saving Danny, fixing up his mother's studio just for her, setting aside time in his surgery hours to treat her and refusing to accept a shilling for it, he had given so much of himself, and yet still, he seemed to want to give more. Had brought her tea, was offering now to make her something to eat, watching her with hopeful eyes, as if nothing in the world would please him more than making up a plate of eggs for her to eat. How was she to repay such kindness? She asked herself. As far as she could see she had done nothing to deserve it, had only served him as was her responsibility as his housekeeper, and taken advantage of his hospitality.

 _Perhaps a grateful heart is payment enough,_ she thought. There was precious little else she could offer him, just now. It would wound him if she refused, if she acted as though she did not need his gentle care. Perhaps the kindest thing she could do for him now would be to let him do as he saw fit, and thank him for it.

"A bit of egg, perhaps," she allowed, and a smile blossomed across his face, and Jean's heart did a funny little flip in her chest. He really was such a kind man, when he wasn't rushing around like mad and making such a mess of things, and a handsome one, too, his bulk heavy and warm beside her. Perhaps there were worse things in life, than to share her home with such a man.

"Back in a tick," he said, and reached out absently to place a reassuring pat on her feet, resting on the edge of the sofa between them. She'd not bothered with her stockings today, and so she felt the warmth of his skin hot as fire against her own, and shivered.

"Bloody hell, Jean!" he said, laughing as he touched her. "Your toes are freezing."

And then, as if he had given it no thought at all, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, he sandwiched her cold little toes between his two broad palms, rubbing them gently to warm them. His touch accomplished what the fire could not, sent heat licking up her body from the tips of her toes to the base of her spine. It was such a lovely, tender thing to do, she thought, to see a need and do what he could to correct it, but there was a strange sort of intimacy in it, a familiarity she had not shared with anyone in so very long. In her adult life no one had ever touched her bare feet save for Christopher, the man she had loved, the man she had shared her life with, but Lucien did it now without blinking, a gentle sort of affection in the gesture that left her almost breathless. Across the sofa Lucien looked up from the work of his hands and found her watching him, and a strange sort of recognition seemed to flicker in his eyes, as if he had seen through to the very heart of her, and found the longing she did not dare name.

"Let's get you a blanket, eh?" he asked, pulling his hands away abruptly. Jean murmured a quiet assent, but he wasn't listening; he rushed across the studio and pulled the fluffy white blanket from the rack at the end of her bed, bringing it back to her at once.

"There we are," he said, carefully draping it over the lower half of her body, tucking the ends in under her feet.

"That's much better," Jean told him, forcing herself to speak. For the first time all day, she wasn't cold, anymore. He lingered for a moment, watching her, and she wondered, not for the first time, what on earth was going on in that complicated mind of his, what he thought when he saw her this way, still wrapped in her robe in the middle of the afternoon, with no makeup to speak of and her hair not as neat as she would have liked, pale and ill. Was it pity, that moved him so? Or was it something else?

"Let me just," he started to say, but his hands were already moving, and his words trailed off as he reached out, and brushed a lock of hair back from her face. The touch of his fingertips against her skin alarmed and excited her in almost equal measure; when had he begun to touch her so casually, not just within the confines of the surgery but here in her own bedroom? When had she begun to welcome it?

As he pulled his hand away his smile faded, and Jean looked closer, wondering what could trouble him so. The answer lay caught within his fingertips, a few strands of her dark hair pulled away by the gentlest touch of his hand. The fond feeling of warmth, of hope, of yearning that had begun to swell within her retreated at the sight, that reminder that she was unwell, that the battle still raged within her body, that she was his patient, and he her doctor.

"I'll go see about making you something to eat," he said, slipping his hand into his pocket as if to hide the evidence of her disease he held there, and without another word he departed, and Jean let him go in silence, thinking all manner of troubled thoughts.


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: while I personally enjoy our collective agreement on Jean's birthday being in January, it does come immediately after Anzac Day in canon, so I am rolling with that here. Just know, in my heart, her birthday is 24 January.

_16 May 1959_

Lucien was sitting quietly at the kitchen table with the morning's newspaper and a cup of tea when a knock sounded loud upon the front door. It startled him; today was Saturday, and Saturday meant no patients, no responsibilities. Mattie had retreated to the sunroom with a book, out of earshot of the door, and Jean was still asleep, and with all the tenants of his home accounted for and no visitors expected Lucien was left with a strange feeling that was part curiosity and part dread. If there had been a death, if Matthew had need of him, the telephone would have rung, and if Danny had come round to see his Auntie Jean he would have come marching through the kitchen door the way he always did. What if this was the church ladies, come to sit with Jean awhile? She'd hate them knowing she was still abed at going on 10 o'clock in the morning, and Lucien did not want to be the cause of such disappointment or embarrassment for her. Perhaps a little white lie might send them on their way, or perhaps it wasn't the church ladies at all, but something far more insidious.

The only way to uncover the truth, he knew, was go and see who it was, and so he stood, tugging absently at his cardigan as he went marching off to the front door. The visitor knocked again as he approached, and so he called out a hearty, _coming!_ to announce himself, and in the next breath he flung the door wide.

For a moment he simply stood, staring. A young man stood on his doorstep, a young man Lucien was quite certain he'd never seen before in his life. The lad looked to be in his mid-twenties, though his sharp grey eyes were wise and tired beyond his years. The stranger wore a very neat black suit, though his jacket was somewhat wrinkled, as if from travel. In his left hand he carried a battered leather traveling case, and as he caught sight of Lucien he offered his right hand for a shake.

"You must be Doctor Blake," he said in a low, serious sort of voice.

"And you must be Christopher Beazley," Lucien answered, a grin bursting across his face as he reached at once to return the boy's handshake. The longer he looked at this young man the more he saw of Jean, her high sharp cheekbones, the line of her jaw, the color of her eyes, reflected in the face of the man who had grown from the boy she'd raised. He recognized the lad's voice, as well, from the many phone calls they had exchanged while Jean was in hospital, and Lucien could not have been more pleased to meet him in the flesh, though he had absolutely no idea how it was young Christopher had come to be standing here, when Christopher lived all the way in Adelaide and as far as Lucien was aware had no plans to call upon his mother.

"Please, come in," Lucien said quickly, stepping inside to allow Christopher room to maneuver through the doorway.

"This is a pleasant surprise," he added as he swung the door closed, "I know your mum will be thrilled to see you."

"Surprise?" Christopher repeated. "Mum didn't tell you?"

The initial delight Lucien had felt at Christopher's arrival was fading quickly. Just what hadn't Jean told him? The thought that perhaps Jean meant to go back to Adelaide to convalesce with her son rather than continuing to submit to Lucien's attentions flitted through his mind, and stirred up a terrible sort of dread. He had thought, before now, that things were going quite well; he had thought that together he and Jean had reached a sort of understanding between them. He had thought...well. He had thought she was pleased, with him.

"I'm afraid she didn't mention anything about you coming to visit, no," Lucien said carefully. He did not want to be the cause of any strife between Jean and her son, but he also did not wish to appear as if he was too distracted to pay attention to what was happening in his own home. Too late for that, perhaps.

"I asked her if I could come and see her for her birthday," Christopher told him. "She said she was certain you wouldn't mind, I just assumed she'd spoken with you. I passed a hotel while I was in the taxi, I could go and-"

"Nonsense," Lucien said at once, clapping the lad on the shoulder with one hand and reaching for his bag with the other. While Lucien might have been terribly confused, he would not ever have anyone say he was a poor host, and he would never turn Jean's own son away. Particularly not now, the day before her birthday, when young Christopher had come all this way just to see her, and she was faring so poorly.

"We've plenty of room for you here," Lucien continued, "and I really must insist that you stay with us. See as much of your mum as you can, eh?"

A strange sort of surprise seemed to flicker in young Christopher's eyes as Lucien said _stay with us,_ and too late Lucien realized just how familiar those words sounded. It was, after all, _his_ house, and Jean had no claim of ownership over it as far as anyone else was aware. To his mind, though, the house was _theirs,_ a place they both belonged, together, and he would not have her severed from it, not for any reason. Such a declaration must have seemed strange to her son, however, who had no doubt begun to form his own opinions of his mother's employer. Lucien could only hope those opinions were favorable.

"Thank you, Doctor Blake." There was something very stiff, very formal about young Christopher, he did not smile, and apart from his momentary surprise he did not allow his emotions to show. The lad was still, and quiet, in a way that left Lucien feeling somewhat uneasy. From the moment he first arrived Jean had not hesitated to speak her mind but her initial disapproval of him was couched in a careful sort of courtesy. As they grew to know one another he had learned that the lift of her eyebrow and the flush of her cheeks and the tenor of her voice were fair indicators of her emotional state, but there was still so very much she kept hidden from him. Perhaps her boy had inherited that, as well, along with the physical traits she'd left upon him.

"Please, call me Lucien," he said easily. "Now, your mother's asleep just now but the kettle's still warm. Why don't you come and have a cuppa?"

Without waiting for an answer Lucien stowed Christopher's case by the foot of the stairs and marched off for the kitchen. Christopher's feet made no sound upon the carpet, but Lucien could feel the weight of the young man's stare heavy upon his back. In the kitchen he found some purpose for himself, calling cheerily, _have a seat_ while he fetched down a mug and began faffing about with the tea, but such endeavors occupied him for no more than a minute or two, and then he was forced to join young Christopher at the table.

"Thank you, Doctor Blake," Christopher said as he accepted his mug. His refusal to use Lucien's given name did not go unnoticed, but Lucien wasn't quite sure what to make of that just yet, and so decided not to press the issue.

"How was your journey, then?" he asked, casting about desperately in search of some suitably polite topic of conversation. "It's a long bus ride from Adelaide."

"It was fine," Christopher answered evenly. "Uneventful. I don't like to leave my wife on her own, but I wanted to come and see mum."

It was Jean herself who'd first warned Lucien that Ruby could be an excitable girl, and he'd heard the truth of it himself when he spoke to her on the telephone. The young man sitting across the table from him now was quite the opposite of excitable, it seemed, and that left Lucien all the more curious about him, about what sort of man he was, how he had come to be married and what sort of life he had made for himself.

"She really will be pleased to see you," Lucien said. They did not discuss her sons often, Jean and Lucien, but he knew she loved her boys fiercely. "I'm sure it must have just slipped her mind. The medication she's taking can sometimes have that effect."

"How is she, Doctor? Really? She won't talk about how she's feeling, but it isn't like her to forget things, and it isn't like her to sleep so late in the day."

The worry that had leached into Christopher's tone, the furrow of his brow, were the first genuine displays of emotion Lucien had seen from the lad, and he liked him all the more for it, for knowing that he was worried about his mum, and eager to see her. Jean deserved a son who worried for her as much as she worried for him, Lucien thought.

"She's as well as can be expected," Lucien said slowly. "The medication is...well. It's very difficult. It's her best chance of a long and happy life, but she has a rough road to walk before she gets there."

"One of the men in my unit, his mother had breast cancer. He said all her hair fell out, and she couldn't keep anything down, and she wasted away to nothing in her hospital bed. He said the medicine killed her quicker than the cancer would have done."

A terrible sort of gloom settled over them both, despite the cheerful morning sunlight streaming in through the kitchen windows, and for once Lucien found himself quite at a loss for words. If he'd been talking to anyone else, a stranger or a patient, he'd point out that they had absolutely no idea how quickly the cancer might have killed the lady in question, or which end would have been more undignified. He'd talk about how symptoms varied from patient to patient, based on the severity of the case and the general health of each individual, and he'd say, too, that great strides were being made day by day, and that the survival rates were improving all the time. He'd say that breast cancer was not ovarian cancer, and he'd say, too, that medical research counted for far more than secondhand anecdotal evidence. He'd say that languishing in a hospital in some backwater town was not the same as having one's personal physician sleeping down the hall. But young Christopher was not just anyone, and Lucien did not wish to antagonize the lad in any way, did not want to sour their relationship before it had even begun. He wanted, very much, for Christopher to like him.

"She's tired," he allowed. "And some days she does have difficulty eating. But really, Christopher, she's incredibly strong, and she's handling herself so well. Some days, you wouldn't even know she was ill. We've been very lucky."

The same flicker of recognition sparkled in the lad's eyes, as Lucien said _we've been;_ he had, once more, spoken of himself and Jean as if they were a pair, and he could only imagine what Christopher might think of that. What he might think of _him,_ the wealthy doctor who let his housekeeper stay on even though she could no longer work as she once had done, treated her without accepting payment and gave her equal standing in his own home. Perhaps he might misjudge the situation; then again, perhaps he might see the truth at once. The truth was that Lucien cared for Jean, a very great deal, and her health was his only priority, above anything and everything else.

"We're very grateful to you, Doctor," Christopher said. "You've done so much for her."

"Jean is...Jean is very dear to me," Lucien said. "We think of her as family, Mattie and I, I mean, and we want what's best for her."

Young Christopher seemed to ponder that for a moment, but before he could reply the door to the sunroom swung open, and Mattie appeared with her book tucked under her arm.

"Lucien?" she was saying as she came marching in. "Did I hear - oh, hello."

She faltered in her progress, watching young Christopher curiously; apparently she didn't know anything about his visit, either.

"Mattie, this is Christopher. Jean's son. Christopher, this is Mattie O'Brien, our lodger. She's the District Nurse."

While Lucien made the introductions Christopher rose politely to his feet, and shook her hand, too, while Mattie grinned and his own face remained unreadable.

"Would you like a cuppa, Mattie? There's plenty to go around." It was the polite thing to do, offer Mattie tea while he and Christopher had their own already, but Lucien had extended the invitation to her mostly out of a desperate need for a distraction, something to direct the conversation away from his own strange relationship with Jean and onto safer ground. Mattie grinned and settled herself at the table, and he went to fetch down another mug, breathing a sigh of relief as he went.


	30. Chapter 30

_16 May 1959_

"Honestly, Christopher, I'm fine," Jean said. She was being stubborn, and she knew it, but she could not bear the grief she saw in her son's eyes when he looked at her. "Please don't worry about me, sweetheart."

They were sitting together in her own little parlor. Young Christopher had laid the fire for her today, without complaint despite the fact that outside her suite the weather was fine, and too warm for a fire by most folks' standards. It seemed to Jean she was always cold, these days, and so when she curled herself into her customary corner of the fine leather sofa Lucien had purchased for this room she brought her fluffy white blanket with her, tucked her legs up under her and draped the blanket carefully over her lap. A tea service was laid on the table, and they each clutched a warm cup in their hands, looking out at the flames. Beside her Christopher was wearing a neat black suit, not so expensive as one of Lucien's but nice enough, cut in the fashion young men preferred these days. If Jean were being honest she preferred the older ways better, wider ties and waistcoats, braces and pocket squares. Lucien's old fashioned suits made him look like a gentleman.

"I always worry about you, mum," he told her, not unkindly. In fact, his forthrightness surprised her; it was always Jean who rang him, always Jean who wrote to him, Jean who went to visit him at Christmas. As far as she could recall Christopher had not made the trip up to Ballarat once since he'd left home; his brother hadn't, either. In fact, before he suggested this little visit Jean had been quite certain he did not think of her at all, save for when she rang him, but he had asked to see her, had come all this way, and the concern in his expression was genuine. Perhaps he did worry for her then, her darling boy so far from home. The thought warmed her heart, but it troubled her, too; she was his mother, and she was meant to look after him, not the other way round.

"I just don't like you being so far away from us," he continued. "If something should happen…"

 _Ah,_ Jean thought. _So that's what this is about._ If he meant to take her from this house, he would have a fight on his hands. She did not intend to go, and she did not think Lucien meant to let her.

"This is my home," she reminded him. "I have friends here, and my doctor's just down the hall."

A flicker of something dark shone in Christopher's eyes, and if Jean had been speaking to anyone else she might have had the good grace to blush, realizing that she'd just pointed out she slept a few paces away from the most notorious bachelor in town. Always before she and Mattie had kept their rooms upstairs, away from Thomas at first and away from Lucien now, a nod to propriety. No one could come sneaking up those stairs - or down them - without Mattie or Jean hearing, and they served to both protect and dissuade one another from any sort of lewdness, and so preserved their reputations. Now, though, Mattie was tucked away upstairs at the back of the house, and she'd have no way of knowing what was going on downstairs.

Not that any sort of shenanigans were afoot. Jean's heart had warmed towards Lucien considerably over the last few weeks, but she had not forgotten who she was, or who he was. They were only friends, only fond of one another, only forced into proximity by circumstances beyond their control, and once Jean was well she would move right back upstairs, and go back to being just his housekeeper.

 _I will be sad to leave this room, though,_ she thought. Oh, it would be most improper for her to continue living in her own private suite, with a bathroom and a sitting room all to herself while the master of the house had only the one little room, and had to walk down the corridor to the first floor bathroom to relieve himself. Such lavish quarters, the rooms that had once belonged to Mrs. Blake herself, were not meant for a housekeeper. But Lucien had restored them so beautifully, and Jean would hate to see the door to the studio closed once more. Perhaps she could convince him to move in here, once she was well. Then all his hard work would not go to waste, and he would sleep in a place more fitting of his station.

"The doc takes good care of you, doesn't he?" Christopher asked carefully. There was no insinuation in his tone, no judgement in his gaze; perhaps he meant the words precisely as he said them, and any innuendo Jean might have found in them was the product of her own guilty conscience more than his misinterpretation of the state of affairs - such as they were - between Jean and Lucien.

"He's a very good doctor, and he's been very kind to me. I'm grateful to him."

Jean could choose her words carefully, too. In truth Lucien had been, if not the soul of courtesy, as close to that as he could manage. The man could be reckless, selfish when the mood struck him, but he had so far not missed a single one of their appointments, and he was gentle when he checked in on her in the mornings, fetched her a cup of tea or laid the fire for her with a jovial spirit when she asked it of him. If his hand lingered rather longer on her wrist than it ought, if he was more tender with her than she had ever seen him with anyone else, she accounted that no more than the concern of one friend for another. After all, he could hardly be seduced by a woman who was ill, and weak, and tired, and chided him for his bad behavior like a schoolmarm. He was her doctor, she his patient. That was all there was between them, all there ever would be.

"He said you've been tired. Having trouble eating. And you forgot to tell him I was coming."

Jean frowned. Before Christopher's arrival she had been absolutely certain that she'd spoken to Lucien about it; she'd planned to, at any rate, and though she could not recall the details of that conversation - a conversation that had, apparently, never taken place - she had been so _certain_ it hadn't slipped her mind, so convinced that she had not been so callous as to invite a visitor to Lucien's home and never discuss the matter with him. But Lucien was likewise insistent that she'd never brought it up, and her memories were hazy, her days bleeding into one another without her usual flurry of activity to differentiate one from another. She'd been forced to concede that she must have forgotten, after all, and it galled her.

"He says that may be a side effect of the medication," Christopher pointed out.

 _Just how much did he tell you?_ Jean wondered crossly. As her doctor, and her friend, Jean didn't think it was right of Lucien to go babbling on to Christopher about her condition. But no doubt her son had been worried, and Lucien had only wanted to help him, to give him as much information as he could and try to set the lad's mind at rest. Whether he had crossed a boundary of privacy or not, she knew he had only done it with good intentions, and would not admonish him for it.

"It's been a difficult few weeks," Jean allowed, feeling awkward and strangely vulnerable. From the moment she'd returned from hospital she had not discussed her condition, her feelings, with anyone apart from Lucien; even Mattie received somewhat deceptive answers from her, as Jean did her best to maintain her privacy, and what little of her dignity remained to her. It didn't feel right, somehow, confessing to weakness, even to her son. Especially to her son, she thought. It was her job to look after him, to be strong for him; what sort of mother would she be if she became no more than a burden?

"But I'm managing quite well," she rushed to add. "And all in all it hasn't been nearly so bad as I expected."

 _Yet._ It would get worse, she knew. It would get much worse.

For a moment Christopher was silent, staring moodily at the fire. _What on earth is going on in that head of his?_ Jean wondered, not for the first time. Christopher had always been her quiet one, more likely to be found with his nose in a book in the hayloft than caught in some churlish antics like Jack. With Jack, she'd never had to wonder what he was thinking; he wore his heart on his sleeve, his emotions always showing, whether in bright, sunny smiles or explosive outbursts. He'd been more like his father, that way. Her Christopher, her sweet man, whose mood swelled and receded like a storm in summer. His voice could be loud as thunder, she recalled, but his hands were sweet as honey, and she had loved him, like she'd never loved anyone else, before or since.

Young Christopher, though, he was Jean, through and through, and she knew it. He favored her more than Jack did, in the face, and he had inherited her tendency towards retreating into herself, taking all the good and the bad that life gave to him and hiding them away. Had he learned that at her knee, she wondered, her fingers itching to reach out and run through his hair; had he watched her as a child, watched the way she moved when things were bad, the tightness of her smiles, heard the steady constancy of her voice and absorbed it all like a little sponge? Or was his quiet stillness bred into his very bones, a part of him decided by God before he'd ever come screaming into the world, like the color of his hair or the shape of his nose?

 _However it happened,_ she thought sadly, _I gave it to him._

"Sweetheart," she said, very softly, reaching out to rest her hand on his shoulder. To her very great surprise he reached for her, too, and covered her hand with his own. Such affection was not common between them, and she basked in it now, relieved.

"I know things have changed," he said, still staring into the fire and refusing to look at her. "But I still need you, mum. Ruby and I have been talking, and...well. I'd like for you to meet your grandchildren someday."

"Oh, _Christopher_ ," Jean gasped, her heart swelling within her chest. "Is she-"

"Not yet," he answered quickly. "But we want to have children, and we want them to know you. We need you to stick around for a good long while. God knows Jack still needs you."

"I'm not going anywhere," she promised him, giving his shoulder a little squeeze. "This is just...this will all be a memory, one day. Lucien is doing everything he can, and I'm going to be all right."

Finally Christopher did look at her, his head swinging round at the sound of Lucien's given name falling from her lips. A misstep, perhaps, she realized too late; it was not wise, to show him just how familiar she and Doctor Blake had become. Jean wanted him to be happy, not worried his mother was up to not good, or being taken advantage of by a rake. Once more he surprised her, though, because he only smiled.

"Doctor Blake is a nice bloke," he said evenly. "I'm glad he's taking such good care of you."

It was, she thought, not exactly a blessing. Christopher was a grown man, and he knew now what he had not known when he was a boy, knew that his mother was only human, a woman like any other woman, and perhaps he had tried, over the years, to prepare himself for the moment when she chose a man, and set aside her widowhood at last. Even if he had considered the possibility before, though, she was still his _mother,_ and she could not imagine any subject more uncomfortable for the pair of them than her love life, or lack thereof. Not that she loved Lucien - of course she didn't - but she rather got the feeling that if she _did,_ Christopher wouldn't try to stand in her way. She didn't quite know what to make of that, but considering she and Lucien had no designs upon one another she supposed it didn't really matter. Her son loved her, and wanted her to be happy, and that was enough.

"Drink your tea before it gets cold," she told him, and he laughed, and did as he was told.


	31. Chapter 31

_16 May 1959_

"Please, don't go to any trouble," Christopher said, but he knew already that he was fighting a losing battle. Though her face was a bit pale, though there was a tremor to her hands he liked not one little bit, his mother had insisted on cooking a _proper_ supper, had sent the good doctor off to the greengrocer's and the butcher's with a little handwritten list of items she'd need, and then spent the afternoon whipping up the sort of meal Christopher only saw at Christmas.

"Nonsense," his mum said, in that way she had where her lips were smiling but her eyes were determined. "You're my son and I'm going to feed you."

 _And that's that;_ he could hear her thinking it, even if she didn't say it.

"I just let her be when she's in a mood like this," the Doc said to him in a conspiratorial stage-whisper that carried straight to her ears.

"I heard that!" she said, and for the first time all day a bit of color flushed through her cheeks. The Doc laughed, and clapped Christopher on the shoulder.

"Let's have a drink, eh?" he said.

Christopher's first impulse was to say _no, thank you;_ he had, after all, come all this way to spend a few days with his mum, to celebrate her birthday and ascertain for himself whether or not she was as well as she claimed to be, and he didn't think it would be very courteous of him to just leave her working in the kitchen, when she was ill and it was _her_ bloody birthday. But then he knew his mother, knew her well, and he knew that if he did not retreat with the Doc now he'd be shooed out of the room in a few minutes anyway. Mum had never liked having folks underfoot while she was cooking, and especially not men. The kitchen was her domain, and she guarded it fiercely.

So Christopher only smiled, a bit tightly, and let the Doc lead him towards the drinks cart in the parlor.

He was a strange man, the Doc. He had seemed to recognize Christopher on sight, even if he hadn't been expecting his company. Somehow Christopher didn't think the Doc had seen many pictures of him; there weren't many to begin with, and his mum wasn't the sentimental sort. It seemed unlikely she'd dug out the few precious photographs she did possess and showed them off to the Doc. But he'd known, anyway, and welcomed Christopher as if he had just as much right to be there as any of the rest of them, even though it was the Doc's house and he hadn't technically been invited.

That was strange enough, his kindness unusual for a man of his station - and not at all like Christopher's memories of old Doctor Blake, who'd been a stickler for tradition and _knowing your place_ \- but things just got stranger from there. This Doctor Blake had poured Christopher's tea himself, and spoken to him gently, made himself scarce once Mum was up and about so Christopher could spend some time with her uninterrupted. And then once she'd started going on about supper and there being nothing in the larder he had volunteered to go into town _himself._ That simply wasn't done, in Ballarat. Oh, back home in Adelaide Christopher would sometimes go to the market if Ruby wasn't feeling well, but he was just a poor soldier with a delicate wife. In Ballarat, the richest men in town didn't do their own shopping, and they certainly didn't do so at the behest of their housekeepers, instead of the other way round. But the Doc had offered, and accepted the list with good grace, and returned with everything on it plus a wrapped parcel from the baker's that he had presented to Mum with glee.

 _A treat,_ he'd said, grinning. _For our breakfast in the morning._

Mum had unwrapped the package and revealed four rather nondescript looking pastries, but her breath had caught in her throat and she had smiled, and when she said _thank you,_ she rested her hand on the doctor's arm. Just for a second, the touch fleeting and familiar, but Christopher had clocked it from across the room, and pondered it now, watching the Doc pouring two measures of whiskey for them to enjoy.

When Mum first told him she meant to stay on with the Doc, that the man had offered to see to her care himself, he'd wondered what the state of affairs - such as it was - might be in this house. He'd not met the younger Doctor Blake before, and he knew very little about the man. Perhaps folks in different social circles had heard tales of Lucien Blake and his life out in the world, but Christopher's parents had been farmers, and after she went into service his mother had kept her employer's secrets. She hadn't spoken much about him, just mentioned in passing in her letters and her infrequent phone calls that the man was settling in. Any son would worry about his mother, having her life upended by the death of one employer and the arrival of another - particularly given that she lived in the man's home - but Mum never talked much about what life was like for her here, what she got up to, how she was getting on. The conversation was always about him, or Ruby, or Jack. Never a word about her. Never a word about what she did all day, or how she passed her evenings, or how she was finding the man who had suddenly assumed such importance in her life.

No, Christopher had been left to form his own conclusions. Knowing that this Doctor Blake was younger than the last, closer to Mum's age than Thomas had been, knowing that he was unmarried, that had left rather a bad taste in Christopher's mouth. Either the man had a limp handshake, Christopher had thought, or he was a rake. Those were the only two reasons he could reckon a man with that much money could be unmarried. If it was the first, he imagined Mum and Doctor Blake would get on splendidly - she had always been friendly with that Henry Dent fellow - but if it was the second...Christopher didn't like the thought of his mum alone with some lecherous old bastard. Oh, Mum was hardly the sort of woman who would suffer a man who pinched her bottom when she walked by, but she needed the work, and she'd been alone for so long, he couldn't help but worry that things might take a turn in an unseemly direction.

Christopher didn't like thinking about that, either. When he was younger he'd prayed she wouldn't remarry; he'd hated the thought of a step-father, watching his mum with another man, having to submit to another man's rules. And Jack; Christ, Jack would have been unbearable, if she'd ever gone out with anyone. She never did, though, never entertained any man at all, and he'd been grateful for her lack of suitors, or lack of interest in them. As he got older, though, Christopher began to rethink some of his childhood petulance. It was Ruby that changed him, and he knew it. He fell in love, actually in love, found the one person he wanted to be with for all the rest of his days, the one person who mattered more to him than anyone else, and some nights when he woke beside her, his heart full to bursting, he thought about how long his mum had been alone, and he'd grieved for her. It would be nice, he'd begun to think, if she wasn't alone anymore. If she could have a home of her own, if she no longer had to work, if she could have someone to wake up next to. God help him, but his memories of his father had faded like an old photograph, and he thought his mum deserved more than memories.

None of that, though, none of his wondering or the quiet conversations he'd had with Ruby, had prepared him for _this._ For the Doc, who was not bent-backed or fat or limp-wristed in the least, who seemed to dote on her, who teased her gently, who she touched so easily. She'd never been a particularly affection woman, his mum; oh, she was with him and his brother, poured out so much affection on her boys it damn near suffocated them, but with everyone else she was always so incredibly proper, reserved and polite, always. Only she'd touched the Doc, when he brought her pastries.

"Here's to your mum, eh?" the Doc said, jerking Christopher out of his reverie as he handed over a whiskey glass.

"To mum," Christopher agreed, and they clinked their glasses together once in toast.

"Hear, hear," the Doc murmured, and then they drank together.

A very strange man, Christopher thought.

"Come on, then, have a seat," the Doc clapped his shoulder again, steered him towards the sofa. Maybe that was where she'd got it from, Christopher thought, the touching; the Doc had laid a hand on his shoulder several times, and he'd only been in the house a bare few hours. Maybe the Doc had started to rub off on her.

And maybe, Christopher thought, that wasn't a bad thing. It was awkward, and strange, and uncomfortable, thinking about just how familiar the Doc and Mum might have become while they were living under the same roof - Christopher was only human, and no man alive would want to think about his mother being involved in any sort of romance. But the Doc was just so bloody _nice,_ and he made her smile, and Christopher hadn't seen his mother smile for a very long while. If she had to pick someone, maybe the Doc wasn't such a bad choice.

"How's your wife?" the Doc asked. "Young Ruby. I spoke to her on the phone while your mother was in hospital."

That was nice, too, that the Doc had remembered her name, and thought to ask after her. Old Doctor Blake had never been half so interested in what his housekeeper's family was getting up to; Christopher had never even visited his mother here, after he joined the Army. _It would be best if I came to you,_ she'd say when he asked about Christmas, even though he knew full well the Doc had several empty bedrooms, and Mum had to kip on the sofa when she came to Adelaide. Thomas Blake had plenty of room, but no place for Christopher's family. It seemed Lucien was very different from his father indeed.

"She's all right," he said. "Thank you. I don't like to leave her, but it's not for long, and she knew I wanted to come and see Mum."

"I'm glad," the Doc told him, smiling. "You've lifted her spirits immensely."

"Has she been unhappy?" Christopher asked quickly. She'd never tell him if she was, and he wasn't above asking for a report on her while he was out of her earshot.

"A bit bored, I think," the Doc allowed, his smiling fading. "She tires easily, and she can't be as active as she's accustomed to."

"Must get lonely," Christoper said slowly, thinking of his mum sitting on the sofa in her little parlor, staring at the fire, with no one around to keep her company.

"Mattie and I spend as much time with her as we can," the Doc answered, a bit defensively. "And the ladies from the church come round, sometimes. We've hosted her sewing circle twice."

It had been in Christopher's mind to suggest that Mum might be happier in Adelaide with him, with Ruby to keep her company, but looking at the Doc now he swallowed those words. There wasn't any point in making such arguments; the Doc wanted her to stay with him, Christopher could see that written all over his face. And if she did come to Adelaide, she'd have to stay in hospital, where she could be looked after properly, and she'd be twice as miserable cooped up in bed all day long. Here she had every comfort, and her doctor just a shout away. It was for the best, even Christopher could see that, now.

"There you are!" came a cheerful voice from the doorway. Christopher looked over his shoulder, and found the district nurse standing there, smiling at them both. He'd met Mattie earlier that morning, and had found her to be a perfectly agreeable, well-tempered girl. It was another justification for Mum staying put, knowing that the district nurse was in residence, too, that Mum wouldn't be all alone with no one but the Doc to look after her. Mattie would be a good distraction for her, he thought. And perhaps a safeguard against wagging tongues, should anyone else begin to wonder just how close the Doctor was to his housekeeper.

"Mattie! Come and have a drink," the Doc said, gesturing towards his drinks cart. "We're toasting to Jean."

"In that case," the girl said, grinning, "I'd be happy to join you."

Watching her pour herself a drink, listening to the Doc teasing her and Mum's bustling around in the kitchen, Christopher leaned back against the sofa, and began to relax. He'd not known, before he arrived, what he could expect to find in this house, what state it would be in, what state his Mum would be in. But now he knew that she was well, and well looked after, and that the house warm, and full of friendly cheer. He could not have asked for better for his Mum - who he firmly believed deserved all the happiness that she could find, given how difficult her life had been thus far - and he was glad to be here, with these people, in this house, to celebrate her birthday.


	32. Chapter 32

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I'm going to apologize in advance, this has not been edited at all.

_17 May 1959_

Christopher left them in the evening, catching the late bus from Ballarat to Adelaide, and Lucien was truly sorry to see the lad go. Lucien wouldn't hear of Christopher paying for a taxi to take him to the bus stop, not when Lucien was more than capable of driving himself, and it had afforded him a rare opportunity to speak to Christopher alone. Not that they'd said much; Christopher was a quiet lad, and Lucien hardly knew where to begin striking up a conversation. He'd said all he could on the matter of Jean's treatment and her health, and though his heart was bursting with questions - what had Jean been like, as a young mother? How did her sons regard her? How on earth had Christopher fallen in with Ruby in the first place? - he did not dare give them voice, for even he knew there were some matters which must be approached delicately, and this was not the time for it. At the bus stop Christopher had shaken his hand, and murmured _take good care of her, doc,_ before the driver called out a warning and Christopher marched away, back straight like a good soldier. And as he went Lucien found himself hoping it was not the last he'd see of the young man; he rather liked Christopher's steady, serious nature, and he had very much appreciated the smile Christopher had returned to Jean's face.

With Christopher safely away Lucien had rushed home, and ducked immediately into his bedroom. They'd eaten an early supper, so that Christopher might share it with them; though Jean had only picked at her food she had managed to swallow a bite or two of the chocolate cake Mattie had lovingly - disastrously - baked for her, and they had sung for her, but the birthday festivities were not over just yet. There was one more gift Lucien meant to give to her, and he had chosen, rather deliberately, to give it to her in private. Oh, there was nothing salacious or untoward about this present, but it seemed a rather personal thing, and he knew that Jean would not want an audience any more than he did when the time came for her to open it.

Holding the gift tight in his hands he stepped out from his bedroom, and made his way slowly across the house, listening intently for any signs of life. The soft sound of the wireless drifted down from upstairs; Mattie had her own, and the faint strains of that Bobby Lee song Lucien heard everywhere he went seemed to indicate she had gone to bed for the evening. The kitchen was spick and span, and deserted; the ladies must have cleaned up while Lucien was seeing Christopher off. The sitting room was lifeless, too, but then Lucien had expected that; Jean had grown partial to her own parlor, and her sofa so near the fire. The doors to the studio had been left open as if in invitation, and so Lucien did not hesitate to step inside. Jean was curled once more in the corner of her sofa, but her head was leaning back, and she was not moving, her hands not busy with her usual knitting, and so, thinking she must have been asleep, Lucien approached her cautiously, quietly, not wanting to give her too much of a fright if it could be avoided.

As he rounded the edge of the sofa and came to a stop in front of her his heart did a funny little flip in his chest. She was, as he had suspected, fast asleep, her legs drawn up beside her, curled beneath the folds of her robe. Her knitting had tumbled from her hands as she slept, to land in an untidy heap on the floor. Though she was resting the lines of her face were drawn and haggard, as if, even in dreams, she were suffering some discomfort. And yet for all that, he thought she looked lovely, in that heavy pink robe, in her soft satin pajamas, her dark hair tumbling round her face. Such a delicate face she had, those high cheeks, that smooth jaw, her neat little nose, but her bones were made of steel, and he knew it well. Carefully Lucien knelt, gathered up her knitting and set it gently on the coffee table, and then he reached out, and brushed her hair back from her forehead with a gentle hand.

At his touch her eyes fluttered open, a soft sigh escaping her; there was pain in her grey eyes as she blinked slowly into wakefulness, but she did not admonish him for having woken her, for having touched her.

"Lucien," she breathed his name, a small, sad little smile tugging up the corners of her pale lips. "Did Christopher get off all right?"

"He did," Lucien assured her. "He is quite well, and he asked me to look after you."

Jean laughed once, gently. "Did he? I thought I was the one who was meant to be looking after you."

"We can look after each other, eh?" Lucien said. That's what they had been doing up until now, anyway, he thought; she had kept him fed, kept him from drinking too much, kept him focused, and he had done everything in his power to keep her well.

"Are you cold?" he asked then, noting the way she seemed to burrow deeper inside her robe, as if struck by a sudden chill.

"I'm always cold, these days," she grumbled. "Except sometimes I'm so hot I can hardly think," she added, addressing those words to Lucien's back as he was already halfway across the room, making his way towards the little quilt rack at the end of her bed and the fluffy white blanket that lay folded there.

"An unfortunate side effect of the surgery, I'm afraid," Lucien told her as he returned to her, blanket in hand. "Your body's going through rather a lot of changes all at once."

While he spoke Lucien gently laid the blanket over Jean's lap, tucking the ends carefully under her legs, and when he looked up at her he saw a baleful expression on her face. Perhaps she did not need him to tell her about all the changes she was currently experiencing.

"Better?" he asked a bit sheepishly, well aware that he had overstepped the mark and hoping she wouldn't point out his failures.

"Much," she said, a bit primly. "Thank you."

For a moment Lucien stood, looking down at her, having quite forgotten why he'd come in there in the first place. He still held her gift in his hands, and Jean spotted it, arched her eyebrow at him curiously.

"Is that for me?" she asked.

"Oh! Yes," Lucien rushed to answer, plopping himself down on the sofa beside her. "Happy birthday, Jean."

She murmured her thanks as she accepted the gift, turning the little box over slowly in her hands. Such a little thing, that box, clumsily wrapped by Lucien's own hands, and yet suddenly it seemed a very big thing, and not for the first time Lucien found himself wondering at the wisdom of it, giving this thing to her. Giving it to her now, when they had only known one another for less than a year, when things had been so tense between them, when Jean was so very ill, was the sort of gesture that might be easily misinterpreted, but somehow he rather thought that Jean might understand.

"Go on, open it," he encouraged her when she hesitated.

Jean offered him a small, bashful smile, unaccustomed as she was to being on the receiving end of someone else's kindness, and then she neatly tore the paper away, revealing the jewelry box beneath. As her hands ghosted over the box Lucien held his breath, waiting, hoping, with everything he had, that she might like it, that she might see it for what it was.

In a moment she had the box open, and she gasped his name, staring down on the item inside in wonder.

" _Lucien."_

"Happy birthday, Jean," he said again, for he did not know what else to say. Inside that box there lay a small jade brooch in the shape of a flower, a trinket purchased long before, a lifetime before, a world away.

"Thank you, Lucien," she said earnestly. With an unsteady hand she reached out and traced her fingertips across the brooch. "It's beautiful."

And then she looked up at him, her eyes bright and shining in the light of the fire, tears gathering there, though she refused to let them fall.

"Was it…" she ducked her gaze, looked back at the brooch, as if she could not keep her eyes from it. "Was it hers?"

She had understood him, then, he realized. Clever Jean, she'd taken one look at that little bauble, in a style so different from the one favored by the ladies of Ballarat, and recognized at once the significance of it, where it had come from. Did she understand what Lucien meant in giving it to her? That remained to be seen. Perhaps she'd think it tasteless of him, to give her a gift meant for someone else, instead of buying something special for her. Somehow Lucien thought not; having lost a love of her own, he rather thought that Jean might understand that he had given her a gift as precious to him as his own heart.

"No," he answered truthfully. It was not Mei Lin's; she had not ever worn it, had not ever even seen, had not know that it even existed, for time was a cruel mistress, and he had purchased it too late. "I bought it before the Japanese invaded," he told her. "I thought it might make a good present one day. And indeed it has."

A single tear slipped past her, and she nodded once, shortly, in understanding. Lucien had bought that brooch less than a week before the Japanese came calling; when it became apparent that Singapore was next in the line of fire he had sent the brooch, along with several other precious items - the photographs of his family, a few letters, other odds and ends - in a package to a bank in Melbourne, with directions that his belongings be kept in a deposit box. At the time he thought he would call for his belongings within six months, or a year, but it was five years before he ever set foot inside that bank, and when he did, when he ran his fingertips across the photographs of his wife and child, across this brooch he'd meant to give to the woman he loved, he'd broken down and wept.

But it was a beautiful thing, that brooch. It was a beautiful thing that spoke of care, and concern, and warm feeling, and it ought to be worn, he thought. It ought to be treasured by someone other than himself, ought to fulfill the purpose for which it had been purchased. And now he rather thought that it had, for though it had brought Jean to tears he knew that she would treasure it, always, and wear it with pride. It had found a home, now, no longer tucked away at the bottom of his trunk, a forgotten memory of grief, but a reminder now of hope, and a promise, perhaps, for better days to come.

"I don't have anywhere to wear it," Jean murmured, half to herself, but that made Lucien smile, too. She rarely left the house these days, too physically drained and too wary of questions to venture into town, but Lucien remained certain that better days were coming, for both of them. On impulse he reached out and covered her hand where it rested against the little box.

"You will, some day," he told her. "It won't be like this forever, and you'll be able to go out and live your life, just as you please."

To his surprise, and his delight, Jean turned her hand over beneath his, and clung to him, fiercely.

"Thank you, Lucien," she said, and he knew then that she was not talking only about the brooch, and a lump formed in the back of his throat, looking at her beautiful face, knowing how she was suffering. If he still believed in God he would have prayed, then, that she be delivered safely through this trial. He did not know what would become of him if she didn't.


	33. Chapter 33

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This one is a bit heavy fam.

_27 May 1959_

Jean took a great, heaving breath, her whole body shuddering, the tile cold beneath her knees as she knelt in front of the toilet, eyes closed tight against the sight before her. It might be easier, she thought, if she did not look; she fumbled blindly for a moment, and then relaxed as the toilet flushed, carrying away the remains of the previous night's dinner with it. Maybe if she did not have to see it, or smell it, maybe if she thought of something else, something less distasteful, the roiling in her stomach might stop, and then she could -

It was not to be. She had no sooner caught her breath than the nausea struck again, and she was left gasping and trembling, weak as a kitten, half-choked and miserable. She'd thought, before now, that surely nothing was left in her stomach at all, but her body seemed determined, still, to purge itself of the foul poison currently afflicting her. But the poison wasn't in her belly at all, and she knew it; the poison was in her veins, in her blood, in her muscles, steeped into the very bones of her, put there by Lucien's own tender hands.

 _Surely cancer could not be worse than this,_ she thought wretchedly. Tears stung at her eyes and she choked on every breath, the air never quite reaching her lungs, her body spasming wildly out of her control while she clutched the bowl in front of her with hands grown thin and claw-like to her eyes. Before Lucien had discovered the true nature of her ailment she had not been half so miserable as this; oh, her back had pained her, now and again, and the inconsistent bleeding had been quite bothersome, but she had not felt so low, so useless, so close to her own end then, not as she did now. For she did it feel it, now, did feel as if no human body could survive such unending torment, as if one of these days the sickness would take her and refuse to leave her until she could breathe no more, and her heart stopped from the grief and the pain of it.

It hadn't been so difficult, in the early days of her treatment. She'd been tired, and cold, and ill every now and again, but her stomach had given her no more trouble than it had done when she was pregnant with young Christopher, and she knew how to weather such storms. Now, though, she'd had a good many treatments, and the cumulative effect of the medication was enough to leave her sobbing and shaking on the bathroom floor. It was a blessing, she knew, that Lucien had seen fit to install her in the studio; she'd been up for nearly two hours, heaving and retching and weeping, and the sun had not yet risen when she'd first stumbled out of her bed. At least this way she was out of sight, wouldn't trouble Mattie as the girl rose and dressed for the day, would not have to bear the further indignity of witnesses to see her laid so low.

One last time she heaved bitter bile from the depths of her gut, spitting the last of it into the bowl and wiping her mouth with a trembling hand before once more flushing the loo. For a moment she lingered, still kneeling, waiting, but though she felt her belly roiling like the sea in a storm no further upset seemed to be forthcoming, and so she rolled to the side, sat down on her bottom with her back to the wall and her knees drawn up to her chest. It was bloody cold, with nothing to separate her from the tile but her thin satin nightdress, and so she reached up, dragged one of the clean fluffy towels down from where it hung on a bar beside her, and wrapped it round her shoulders like a cape. It was hardly so warm as a blanket, but it helped, a little, and she wiped her mouth once more with a corner of it, trying valiantly to stem the flood of tears coursing silently down her cheeks.

This time of morning she ought to be up and about, starting the kettle, working on breakfast. Lucien and Mattie would need something to eat, before they went out to face the world. Unlike her, they still had some purpose in life, places to be, things to do, and she wanted to help them to do it, longed more than anything for the strength of her own two legs holding her up, carrying her through the world as they had done all her life until now. The least she could do, she thought, was make their bloody breakfast, but she could not find the strength to stand, and even if she could she was not certain that it would do any good, could not be sure that she would not fall ill again the moment she stepped out of the room.

They would do all right without her, Lucien and Mattie. There was fresh fruit in a bowl on the table, and fresh bread in the box for toast. That much they could manage on their own, had grown accustomed to managing as Jean sank further into sickness. There was a routine to their lives, now; the day after treatment was always the hardest, and so Wednesdays and Fridays Mattie and Lucien were often forced to fend for themselves, making their own breakfasts and fetching supper from the chippie. Neither of them had ever complained, nor would they ever, Jean knew, but she _hated_ it, hated knowing that she was not capable of looking after them. She had always taken such pride in caring for her family, and she hardly knew who she was now that she couldn't.

"Jean?" she heard a soft voice calling from beyond the bathroom, and her heart sank. Those mornings when he did not find her already in the kitchen Lucien always came to look in on her, often bringing a cup of tea with him, and it would seem he had done so now, driven by his doctor's heart to seek her out and assure himself that she was well. It was the last thing Jean wanted, however; she could not bear the thought of him seeing her like this, half-naked with a towel round her shoulders for warmth, shivering though her hair was slicked with sweat, tears on her cheeks and the taste of sick in her mouth. No, that simply wouldn't do; if only he would leave her _be_ she thought she could manage herself in peace, might eventually be able to make her way back to bed, but if he saw her like this she feared her heart might break, and she was not certain she'd survive such a cleaving. Lucien, brave and strong and kind, Lucien, hale and hearty, Lucien, who had done so much for her already, opened his home to her and kept her on when she could not earn her keep, who touched her so gently, smiled so warmly; to see the pity in his eyes would cut her sharp as knives.

So Jean did not call out to him; she made as if to rise, thinking that if only she could stand she might be able to shoo him from her rooms, convince him she was all right, but that movement had been a mistake. Her stomach heaved, and in the next breath she was once more kneeling over the loo, retching. While the fit of sickness claimed her she could not think, could not hear, could not breathe, could not sense anything at all beyond her own pain and distress, and so she did not take note of his footfalls or the opening of the door until at last the terrible business subsided, and his voice rung out behind her.

"Oh, Jean," he sighed, sad and sympathetic, and rage welled up within her. It was not directed at Lucien - he had, of course, done nothing wrong, been nothing but kind to her - but rather her own illness, her own weakness, her own body's betrayal and the dreadful circumstances she'd found herself in. It wasn't _fair,_ and with nobody to blame Jean's anger only grew. Before she could answer him her stomach churned one last time, and Lucien did not hesitate; he rushed to her, knelt beside her, wrapped one strong arm around the delicate ridge of her back and steadied her. With his free hand he reached out, brushed the hair back from her face in a sweet, gentle gesture; Jean herself had done the same for her boys, those few occasions when they were unwell, touched them tenderly and whispered reassurances to them, offered them what comfort she could. Such kindness from Lucien touched her heart, for she could not recall when last she'd received such care, but it wounded her, too, for she had not wanted him to find her like this, and it left her feeling weak and worthless and small.

"It's all right," Lucien murmured. Once more he brushed his hand over her hair, but he pulled away from her quite suddenly, and Jean opened her eyes in time to see him wiping a lock of her dark hair off his fingertips and into the bin. Not one strand, or two, but a whole clump of them, set loose by the gentlest of touches, and Jean's tears redoubled in a moment. It was one indignity too many for her to bear, the sight of her hair falling from his fingertips, the knowledge that she had lost so much now as to make her, to her mind, a pitiable creature. Anyone could see it now, looking at her, the thin spots where her scalp had begun to shine through, her hair hanging limp and straight now for she did not dare try to curl it lest the curls pull off even more of it. She had always taken _such_ care with her hair, had always felt such pride when it fell just so, framed her face and made her feel pretty. It was such a little thing, her human vanity; she had never taken so much pride in her appearance that Father Morton would have deemed it a sin, but she had taken some, had felt braver, stronger, when she looked her best. Not so, now; she'd never been less pretty than she was in that moment, and she was beginning to suspect she'd never be pretty again, would never be anything but weak, and fragile, and a burden to those she loved.

"Let's get you a little water, eh?" Lucien asked softly, rubbing his hand gently across her back. "Just to rinse your mouth, you'll feel better-"

"Please stop," Jean gasped at him, the words harsh and bitter to her own ears. "Please, just go." She shrugged away from the touch of his hands and rolled to the side, sitting down once more and wrapping her arms around her knees. Beside her Lucien's eyes widened, his expression hurt, but Jean could not spare a moment for his feelings when her own were in such turmoil. She felt...small, and pitiful, and useless, and ugly, filthy from her bout of illness, shameful from her own weakness, and she did not want him to _see_. She did not want him to remember her like this, retching and weeping, her hair not bright and shining and full of vibrant curls but lank and thin and falling out in his hands. She did not want this to be the vision of her he carried in his heart for all the rest of his days, with her bloodshot eyes, wiping bile from the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand. _I should have left in the very beginning,_ she thought miserably. If only she had gone when she meant to he would have remembered her as she had been, healthy and beautiful, a force to be reckoned with. _It would have been better that way,_ she thought.

"I only want to help," he told her softly, his eyes pleading with her to be reasonable. She didn't need the reminder of just how much he had helped her already, how much he had sacrificed for her sake, how much of a burden she had become to him. It was her place to help _him,_ not the other way round, but now he was stuck with her. He was a sweet man, really, a compassionate man, but she had become nothing more than another responsibility to him. And she feared that was all she would ever be.

"Then go," she said. "Please, I want you to leave." The words felt cruel even as she said them, but she was determined that the best thing for her would be a bit of peace, a moment of solitude, a chance to catch her breath without his sorrowful eyes watching her every move.

"All right," he said, conceding defeat. "If that's what you need."

Slowly he rose to his feet and turned away from her, his steps heavy, his shoulders bowed by the weight of her displeasure. The moment the door closed behind him Jean pressed her forehead to her knees, and let the sobbing take her. How long she sat there weeping she could not say, but when at last she had no tears left she braced her hands on the toilet and rose clumsily to her feet. Her legs trembled, but held her, and so she made her way out of the bathroom, moving slowly, achingly slowly, across her little parlor to her bed. Once there she sat down heavily, intent on rolling beneath the blankets and sleeping the day away, but she paused for a moment, for there on the little table beside her bed there sat a fresh cup of steaming tea. It was her favorite cup, the white china with a little pink flower painted on the side. Someone had brought it to her, left it there for her to find, had done so only recently. She knew, somehow, that someone was Lucien, and shame welled up within her. He had only been trying to help, had continued to try, in his own way, to care for her even when she sent him from her side. He did not deserve such treatment, and she knew it.

With trembling hands she reached for the cup, and brought it to her lips, taking a single, hesitant sip. It was not fair, she knew, to take out her rotten feelings on him, and as she sat there cradling the teacup in her hands she resolved herself to put things to rights between them as soon as she was able.


	34. Chapter 34

_27 May 1959_

"Don't you have somewhere else to be?" Matthew grumbled as he came marching towards his desk - the desk Lucien was currently sitting behind, staring at the autopsy report.

"Now, Matthew," Lucien said with a forced and brittle cheerfulness, "where would I want to be if not here with you?"

"That's what I've been wondering," Matthew said. He flapped his hand vaguely and Lucien rose to his feet, slipping out from behind the desk so that Matthew could reclaim his chair. "For months I can't get you out of my hair, and then suddenly you're rushing off home every day at teatime."

"Every other day," Lucien grumbled under his breath. He had standing appointments with Jean every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, and though he had a somewhat lackadaisical approach to punctuality he had determined from the outset that he would, always, be there for Jean when she needed him. Only she didn't appear to need him now; certainly didn't appear to want him. He could still hear her voice in his mind, raggedly begging him to leave, and it grieved him now, all these many hours later, as much as it had done that morning. It grieved him to think that his presence wounded her, offended her, grieved him to think that he had caused her distress, that she preferred solitude to his company. He had been trying, so damnably hard, to look after her, to keep her comfortable, to make her happy, to the extent that it was within his power to do any of those things. He had thought at her birthday that perhaps they might have reached a crossroads in their relationship, that perhaps all the mistrust and misgivings were behind them, that they were, at last, friends, actual friends, not just courteous housemates. It would seem he had been wrong, on that score.

"What was that?"

"I said your man was poisoned," Lucien said, changing the subject at once. Jean's ailment was not exactly a secret; the ladies from the sewing circle came by to visit, on occasion, and if they knew then surely the whole town knew. Still, it was not something that Lucien was prepared to discuss with anyone; Jean guarded her privacy too fiercely for him to be loose with the details of her disease now. He'd not told a soul, not even Matthew, that it was Jean he was meant to be looking after when he raced out of the station with one eye on his watch, but perhaps word had reached the Superintendent's ear. Then again, perhaps not; Matthew didn't attend the church, and he had no wife to bring gossip home from the butcher's. Unsure of how to interpret Matthew's pointed comment - which seemed to carry with it an insinuation of _something,_ though Lucien couldn't be sure quite what that something _was -_ Lucien elected to ignore it entirely.

"Presence of petechiae," Lucien said, handing over the autopsy report. "And blood in the sputum. Alice has sent some blood samples off to the lab for further testing."

"Any idea what we're looking at?" Matthew was ostensibly perusing the report, but Lucien knew he wasn't actually reading it; he'd get his answers from Lucien's own lips, the way he always did.

"No idea yet," Lucien said. "Probably not anything too exotic, here in Ballarat. We'll know more in a day or two."

"Right," Matthew said, closing the report and slapping it down on the desktop. "Danny and Bill have finished interviewing the witnesses, and so far we've got nothing. We'll come back to it in the morning. Time for you to go home, Blake."

Lucien grimaced. Yes, he really ought to go home. He really ought to check in on Jean; usually when she had a difficult morning he liked to look in on her at lunchtime, but she'd been so frightfully distraught, and so terribly cross with him, that he had instead spent most of the day hiding from her. Oh, he would never have described his behavior as such, not if forced to defend himself - he _did_ need to perform the autopsy and he _did_ need to pop into the hospital to speak with Nicholson and the sandwich from the cafe had been _perfectly acceptable,_ as far as lunches went - but he knew himself well enough to recognize cowardice in his own heart. He was afraid that he had somehow, however unknowingly, offended Jean, afraid that she would close her door to him, no longer allow him to come and sit on the sofa in front of the fire with her, afraid of how his heart would break, should she look at him with eyes baleful and angry, and not warm and affectionate.

There _had_ been affection in her before now, he was certain. She had smiled at him so gently, had held his hand while he sat next to her on her birthday, the little brooch balanced beneath their hands on her lap. Surely, he thought, if she was not at least somewhat fond of him she would not have turned her hand over beneath his, would not have twined their fingers together, would not have clung to him so fiercely.

 _Unless she was only afraid,_ a nasty little voice whispered in the back of his mind. _Unless she was only looking for comfort wherever she could find it. And you no longer offer her any comfort at all. She blames you for doing this to her. For making her so ill. For losing her beautiful hair. You did this to her._

No, Lucien wasn't ready to go home just yet. To face a cold supper of leftover stew and a chunk of bread gone stale three days after its making, to face the doors of the studio closed to him once more, to feel the chill air of dissatisfaction and regret and resentment that must surely be festering in that place, now that Jean had been laid so low by his own hands. He was only trying to help her, to save her, to give her back the life she should have had, but she grew paler and thinner by the day, and his many years' experience as a doctor had taught him that no outcome was guaranteed. What if Jean could have lived out her days in only mild discomfort, and been taken quickly by failing organs, rather than the protracted, undignified suffering he'd brought to her? What if in trying to save her he had killed her, just the same?

With such terrible thoughts swirling through his mind there was only one place he could go. He took himself off to the club, to a dark corner of the reading room, and hid his face behind a newspaper, purchasing round after round, trying to ignore the way Cec's expression grew increasingly more concerned as the evening slipped by. He drank with a grim determination, for his mind was a prison of memories; he had thought that by putting his girls on a boat he had saved them, but they had been lost just the same, and no matter how the intrepid Mister Kim continued to search Lucien was becoming more convinced by the day that they were gone. Killed by his decisions, his prideful choice to send them to Hong Kong, rather than to his father. And now Jean, too, was fading quickly, suffering, laid low by a choice he had made. Accusations and dreadful pleas echoed through his mind, and the minutes passed slowly, heavy with self-recrimination.

* * *

It was very, very late. On any other night Jean would have long since gone to bed; she longed for it now, exhausted down to her very bones and hardly able to keep her eyes open, but she had resolved herself not to sleep until she saw Lucien's face. His supper sat on the table in front of her, gone cold beneath the cloth she'd used to cover it. Her tea had gone cold, too, though she still cradled the mug in her hands, a thin excuse to remain where she was. Mattie had trudged up the stairs perhaps half an hour earlier, but still Jean lingered, sitting at the kitchen table, wrapped in her robe, listening hard for the sound of Lucien's footsteps at the door.

It was the first night since she'd fallen ill that Lucien hadn't been home in time for supper. It wouldn't take a genius detective to work out why he'd suddenly chosen this day to stay away; Jean knew it was her own doing, her own bitter words that had sent him fleeing. The moment she'd gathered her wits that morning she'd known she'd made a mistake, and she had been waiting all day for a chance to make things right, but though the hours passed Lucien did not arrive, and the gravity of her error pricked at her like a thousand tiny needles. Things had been going so _well_ between them; they had been comfortable and content with one another, and he had been so kind, and she had been so grateful to him. Her outburst that morning had not been a result of his own conduct, but if he never came home she'd never have the chance to explain it to him. And then what would become of them?

 _He doesn't want anything to do with you,_ a sad little voice whispered from deep within her heart. _He only helped you because he felt responsible, and now you've gone and thrown his help back in his teeth._

Would he still consent to keep her on, when she could not feed him, could not clean up after him, and could not even be bothered to offer him gratitude in exchange for all the many things he had done for her?

_Perhaps I should have gone with young Christopher, after all._

That might have been easier. It might have been easier for Lucien, not to have to look after her, and it might have been easier for Jean, not to remain in such close proximity to him. For the longer she stayed in his house, the more often he touched her, the more often she caught sight of his gentle smile, the more her heart began to ache. For comfort, for affection, for the warmth of a hand to hold, for a heart that understood her own, for the connection she'd not shared with another living soul since Christopher's death. These things she yearned for desperately, now that she found herself alone, without occupation, and full of fear. And perhaps, she might allow if forced to speak the truth of it, perhaps she had begun to long for those things with _him._ But how could he ever care for her in such a way, when she was wretched, and weak, another burden for him to carry, when she was no longer lovely, or strong, or any of the things she once had been? No, it would be better to leave him entirely than to waste away beneath his pitying stare.

Behind her she heard the sound of the front door opening, and rose slowly to her feet, her heart beginning to race. The time had come for Jean to apologize to him, to explain herself, but remorse had always tasted bitter in her mouth, and she was not looking forward to this, to asking for his forgiveness. But she must, and so she would; Jean Beazley never backed down from an obligation simply because it was difficult.

But as she started to cross the kitchen she could hear Lucien's lumbering footsteps, could hear him crash into the entry table, could hear him cursing, and her heart sank. He hadn't just been avoiding her, then, she realized; he'd been out drinking, drowning his sorrows. It had been months since the last time he'd drunk himself into a rage, crying out in the night, banging on the piano, but now Jean's disregard of him had pushed him to the bottle once more. She wanted to scream, to cry, to stomp her foot; could the man not endure one single slight without losing his head completely? Oh, _why_ had she spoken to him so crossly? It was such a bloody _mess_ , but it was one mess that, as tired as she was, Jean was still capable of straightening out.

She found him in the foyer, leaning heavily against the wall, a dazed expression on his face and a brown paper bag clutched in his hand, the top of a glass bottle just peeking out of it. His tie was askew, his face red, his waistcoat half-unbuttoned, and his eyes were closed as he rested against the well, as if he could not bear to open them. Where he had been, where he had gotten the bottle, how on earth he had got home Jean could not say, but he had made it back to her in one piece, and for that she knew she ought to be grateful. She had sent one man fleeing from her side with harsh words before, and he had never made his way home at all.

"Oh, Lucien," she sighed, rushing to him at once. Gingerly she caught hold of the bottle in its paper bag, and Lucien let her take it from him, let her sit it on the sidetable, out of the way.

"Sorry, Jean," he slurred at her, his eyes still closed. "I'm so sorry." His voice sounded miserable, terrible, full of grief, and Jean could not understand it; it sounded to her as if he were apologizing for rather a lot more than stumbling home drunk, but as far as she could see he had nothing to be sorry for at all. _She_ was the one meant to be apologizing.

"I'm sorry, too," she told him, and he cracked his eyes open blearily, something vaguely incredulous in his expression.

"Come on," she said. "Bed."

There was no sense in trying to have a proper conversation with him, not when he was in this state. The best thing for both of them would be a bit of rest, and so she reached for his arm, tugged on him hard until he flung that arm round her shoulders.

"Shouldn't, I shouldn't," Lucien started to say, but he couldn't quite form a full sentence. Not that Jean had expected him to, anyhow.

"Come on," she said again. "Nearly there."

And they were, nearly there; his bedroom was right by the front door. They went staggering through it, Jean's knees weak from the weight of him and Lucien's knees weak from the whiskey. He fell inelegantly on the bed, flat on his back with his arms flung out to the side, his eyes closed once more.

"Too good, Jean," he said. She wasn't quite sure what he meant by that, but she rather thought he wasn't quite sure himself.

Now that he was in bed - or rather, on it - she knew she ought to leave him to his own devices. It would hardly be the first time he'd fallen asleep in his clothes. But it didn't seem right to leave him wearing his shoes; he'd be dreadfully uncomfortable come morning. He was probably asleep already anyway, she told herself, he was so quiet and so still, and so she went and carefully began the process of slipping the shoes from his feet.

"Don't deserve," Lucien said faintly as first one shoe and then the other dropped to the floor, as Jean did her best not to look at his feet, large and broad and yet strangely vulnerable, in just his socks. She'd never seen him in just his socks before. She didn't want to hear what it was he thought he didn't deserve; he certainly didn't deserve her poor treatment of him, but she could not bear to hear the sorrow in his voice, the sorrow she had put there.

"Sleep now," she told him, placing her hand on his chest, gently, the way she would have done for one of her boys if he'd woken from a nightmare. She wanted only to comfort him, but the warm, solid breadth of his chest beneath her hand sent a shiver down her spine, and she pulled away from him reluctantly.

"Don't deserve you, sweet Jean," he said, and then his whole body went slack as consciousness deserted him at last.

For a moment she stood watching him, confused by his words. What on _earth_ had he meant by that? Jean didn't have the first idea. This impossible, hopeless man; he was so strong, so handsome, wealthy and clever, the whole world lay open at his feet. He could have done anything, gone anywhere, been anyone he chose, and yet he had chosen to remain here, and for the life of her Jean could not understand it. Could not understand _him._ The sight of his warm, weathered face, his broad shoulders, his heavy legs, his feet in their black socks, provided only more questions, and so she slipped quietly from the room, closing the door behind her in silence and retreating to her own bed, and her own tumultuous thoughts.


	35. Chapter 35

_28 May 1959_

"Jean!" Mattie's voice rang out from the kitchen doorway, shrill with surprise. "Are you feeling all right?"

"Fit as a fiddle, Mattie, thank you," Jean answered primly. As innocuous as it might have seemed on its surface Mattie's question had carried with it a sort of accusation, as if the girl didn't approve of Jean standing on her own two feet, making breakfast for her family, and Jean did not approve of that one bit.

"There's toast and jam on the table, and the kettle's still warm. And I made coffee for Lucien, feel free to have some yourself. Bubble and squeak's nearly finished as well."

"You've been busy," Mattie said, appreciation warring with concern in her tone.

"I thought we could all use a nice breakfast."

In truth it had been somewhat difficult for Jean to rouse herself that morning; she'd had a late night, made later still by the way she tossed and turned after she sought her bed, her mind racing as she recalled Lucien's gentle voice. _Sweet Jean,_ he'd called her, spouting off nonsense about how he didn't deserve her, when _she_ was the one who felt undeserving of all his gentle care. As far as she could see Jean had done nothing at all for Lucien since she'd fallen ill, had instead availed herself of his kindness without offering anything else in return, and so she'd heaved herself upright as early as she could manage and bustled off to the kitchen to make him a decent breakfast. He'd need it; he'd been up late, too, drinking more than was wise, and he had that murder victim to worry about today, and patients to see. It was, Jean thought, the least she could do for him.

"Really, Jean, are you sure you're feeling all right?" Mattie asked her gently. Jean was still facing the stovetop and so she could not see Mattie, but she could sense the girl's presence just behind her, could almost imagine her sitting on the kitchen table, watching Jean with worried eyes, a teacup cradled in her hands.

"Honestly, Mattie, I'm fine," Jean said. Not that it would do any good; she knew what Mattie would see when she looked at her now. Jean had pulled on one of her favorite housedresses, a lightweight number that didn't fit too tightly, but still nipped in enough at her waist to make her feel more feminine and less like she was wearing a potato sack. Beneath it, though, Jean knew she was rail-thin and pale, and she'd tied a kerchief round her hair to keep it out of her face, and to keep any stray strands from falling in the food. Oh, she wasn't shedding like a dog in summer but her hair came out more easily now, and she was afraid the tug and pull of her usual pins would cost her more of it than she was willing to part with. The kerchief served its purpose, but combined with that dress now hanging so loosely on her frame she knew it would make her look...well... _ill_. And of course she _was_ ill, but she did not appreciate looking the part.

"It's just, you had such a terrible day, yesterday," Mattie pointed out earnestly.

The bubble and squeak was finished; carefully Jean placed it on a serving platter and wiped her hands on her apron as she turned to face Mattie. A strange sort of sorrow had welled up within her, to hear Mattie so worried for her; Mattie was young, and lovely, and had far more important things to concern herself with than the health of her housekeeper, but still she spent all that trouble on Jean. It had been so wonderful, having Mattie close to hand, a friend to talk to when she couldn't carry herself any farther than the little sofa in her parlor, someone besides Lucien to share her life, a young person to remind her what it was, to hope. Jean rather felt she owed Mattie a debt of kindness, as well.

"It comes and goes," she said, offering Mattie a tired smile. "And this morning, I'm-"

"Oh! Good morning, ladies," Lucien's voice suddenly broke in from the doorway, and Jean lifted her chin and found him standing there, dressed and pressed in one of his neat blue suits, a look of surprise on his face. Perhaps his eyes were a bit bloodshot, Jean thought, though it was hard to tell from this distance. If she'd had as much to drink as he'd no doubt enjoyed the night before Jean was certain she wouldn't be able to stand on her own two feet afterwards, but Lucien looked as handsome and neat as ever, giving no outward sign of the distress that had laid him so low the night before.

"Something smells lovely," he said, shifting somewhat awkwardly on his feet, as if he didn't quite know what to do with himself, as if he had counted on having the kitchen all to himself and had been thrown off guard by their company.

"Jean made bubble and squeak," Mattie told him, gesturing towards the countertop.

Lucien's eyes flickered to Jean's face, and to her horror she felt her cheeks begin to color beneath his questioning stare. _How much does he remember?_ She asked herself. Did he know that she'd put him to bed, that she had slipped the shoes from his feet, that she'd heard his slurred words of self-deprecation? And if he did know, what on earth were they going to do about it?

"My favorite," Lucien said, not beaming or cheerful the way he might have been at any other time, but quiet, questioning, almost.

 _I know,_ Jean thought, but she did not say those words; she didn't think she needed to. Yes, she'd made his favorite breakfast, done it on purpose, because she rather thought he was in need of a bit of care himself, and because she still wanted to make the apology she'd not yet had time to offer him. Lucien didn't need her to explain why she'd made this meal for him, though; the actions spoke for themselves.

"There's a bit of coffee, too," she told him, and her voice came out as quiet as his had been. Mattie was still perched on the kitchen table between them, her gaze bouncing from one end of the kitchen to the other like a spectator at a tennis match, and so in order to diffuse the strange tension that had settled on her shoulders Jean drew the rag from the waistband of her apron, and swatted playfully at Mattie's thigh with it.

"Off the table, Mattie," she said, and the girl jumped to her feet at once, and the kitchen was suddenly full of voices and the clatter of plates as Jean's little family gathered round her and began to eat their breakfast.

She was, as always, last to the table. She wanted to see that everyone else was fed first, that they all had what they needed, and once they were settled she slid into her usual seat at Lucien's left hand with a cup of tea and a plate of plain toast. Although she felt quite fine this morning she was hesitant to try much more than that; her stomach had been delicate of late, and the heady smell of fried potatoes and vegetables from Lucien's breakfast was enough to leave her feeling somewhat off balance. Best not push it, she thought.

Apparently, though, Lucien had other ideas.

"Is that all you're having, Jean?" he asked, not unkindly, his mouth half full of his own breakfast. Mattie's head perked up, alert to the potential for unpleasantness that seemed to hang in the air all around them. It was no secret that Jean chafed at any attempts to meddle in her personal choices, that she answered questions about her health brusquely and vaguely and with more than a hint of distaste. Mattie's own attempts to determine Jean's current state that morning had been quite careful, but Lucien had just bulled straight in with no attempt at sounding conciliatory. On any other day, that might have made Jean quite cross, and no doubt Mattie was wondering if some sort of spat were in the offing. It would not be the first time.

Only now, this morning, with a clear head and a heart full of fond feelings, Jean heard the concern in Lucien's voice and did not bristle at it. He was only worried about her, she knew, and after the events of the previous morning, and the previous night, she was more inclined to respond to him kindly than she had been so far. That she had found her heart swinging wildly from rage to despondency to buoyant affection was not lost on her; she had never felt so changeable in all her days, and hardly knew what to make of it. Just now, however, she supposed it did not matter, really, why she had spurned Lucien's regard on Wednesday and welcomed it on Thursday. Just now, all that mattered to her was that he was still _trying_ , despite her previous crossness, to look after her. He was, somehow, still willing to once more put himself in the line of fire, and Jean was left thinking what a tender soul he was, when he opened his eyes to something other than himself.

"I'm perfectly happy with toast," she told him honestly. A bit of plain toast, a bit of tea, would see her right, and if the morning went well, perhaps she'd be feeling up to a bit more come lunch time.

"I've got to go and speak with Alice this morning," he said slowly, his blue eyes watching her carefully as though gauging her mood. "And I'll probably go to the station after that. But I'll be in at eleven for Mr. Harker's appointment. Perhaps I could fetch something for you while I'm in town."

Those last words he delivered softly, almost hopefully, she thought. As if he wanted, very much, to see her eat a bit more than dry toast, as if he wanted to bring her something, something special, something that would make her smile, make her happy. Like a little boy, she thought, hesitantly offering a ribbon to his sweetheart, eager and uncertain all at once. Perhaps that wasn't it at all, she tried to tell herself, perhaps her sanguine mood had given her a more rosy interpretation of his motives, but she rather thought not. She rather thought that he must remember at least a little of their interaction the night before, and that he might perhaps be trying to make up for it. She rather thought he might be recalling the terrible way she'd sent him fleeing from her side, and might be trying to put himself once more in her good books. Either way, she felt only fondness for him because of it.

"Well," she said, "that's very kind of you, Lucien, thank you."

Across the table from her Mattie's eyes were big as saucers, as if she could hardly believe what she was hearing, how cordially Lucien and Jean were treating one another now.

"Is there something in particular that you might like?" Lucien asked. "I know some patients have said that the medication can have an effect on appetite. I knew one woman who said she'd never be able to eat chocolate again, after treatment."

Jean frowned. He'd been doing so well, had been so lovely, and she'd been feeling so kindly disposed towards him, but then he'd gone and lumped her in with his other _patients_ , and she was left uncertain once more.

"Surprise me," she said, dropping her gaze back down to her toast. _He'll probably forget altogether,_ she thought. _He'll forget about me and Mr. Harker both, once he gets sucked into something more interesting, and I'll have to reschedule all his appointments and sort out my own lunch._

"I'll do that," he said, and something in his tone made her look up at him sharply, and when she did she found him smiling at her softly, hopefully.

Jean had no doubt that he would; Lucien seemed to surprise her at every turn, not just with his behavior but with the way her own heart responded to him, sometimes longing for him, sometimes longing to swat at him, never knowing, from one moment to the next, quite where they stood with one another. Sitting to the side of him like this Jean could not face him head on, but still his gaze seemed to catch on hers, holding them both suspended in this moment when their hearts were full of questions. There were apologies yet to be made, forgiveness yet to be given, but in that moment Jean wondered whether there was any need for them to address the previous day's disasters at all, or whether they hadn't done so already. The breakfast itself was an apology; perhaps Lucien's offer of a treat was one, as well. They had both erred, they had both made amends. Perhaps that was good enough.

"Have you found out what happened to that poor man, Lucien?" Mattie asked, and as one Lucien and Jean turned their attention back to her, both a bit shame-faced at having been caught out staring at one another. The question had been a deliberate one, Jean was certain, an attempt to put a stop to the pair of them mooning at one another, and feeling just a bit sheepish about the whole thing she turned her attention back to her toast, and let Lucien ramble on about his murder. All was it should be; she was not cross, and Lucien was not dejected, and they were all together, enjoying a nice meal. For once, everything seemed to be going smoothly.


	36. Chapter 36

_28 May 1959_

"You know, when I asked you to surprise me this wasn't exactly what I had in mind," Jean murmured tartly. Lucien winced, as much from the bite of her words as from the sting of the alcohol she was using to gently clean the cut above his eye.

"I did bring you that treat," he protested, lifting up the brown paper parcel he held in his hands.

"Sit still," Jean told him reflexively, and he did as he was bid, closed his eyes and kept his hands wrapped tight around the present he'd brought her from the bakery. So far this day had gone spectacularly pear-shaped; a quick chat with Alice had turned into a hunt for clues, and his trip to the bakery had brought him face-to-face with his prime suspect. He'd never been one to let an opportunity pass him by, but a quick, cursory chat had devolved into a brawl right there on the pavement in front of the shop, and he'd been forced to ring Jean and ask her to reschedule his appointments for the day while he tried to set things straight with Matthew. When he'd left the house that morning Jean had been smiling at him, and he'd been imagining a pleasant lunch, just the two of them together, before they decamped to the surgery for her treatment, but he'd missed lunch altogether, and it was Lucien, not Jean, who sat on the examination table now, holding very still while she tended to him.

"Really, I don't know what you were thinking," Jean continued. She'd finished cleaning the cut, and turned away from him to retrieve a plaster.

"He was just there, Jean! I could hardly let him leave without speaking to him."

"Interviewing suspects is a job for the police," she chided him as her hands returned to his face, carefully setting the plaster above his brow. Her touch was gentle, and sure, and though she was scolding him there was a tenderness in the gesture that told him she was more worried for his safety than angry with him for his foolishness. "You're lucky you didn't get any worse than this."

"You should see the other chap," Lucien told her lightly. Above him Jean drew her hands away, and as his eyes fluttered open he found her standing with her hands on her hips, frowning at him.

"He will be all right," Lucien added hastily. "I just...I can hold my own, you know."

As if of their own accord Jean's eyes travelled over his body, and Lucien tried not to look too smug, knowing what she would find when she looked at him like this. Though he was not one to give much time over to the consideration of his physical appearance Lucien did take pains to keep himself fit. He'd made a promise to himself many years before that he would never again feel so weak and helpless as he had done while he'd languished, starving and miserable, in the camp. There was strength enough in his arms, in the breadth of his shoulders, the span of his chest, to protect him from most of the petty dangers life in Ballarat presented.

"I know you can," Jean told him softly, her eyes flickering back to his face. "I just wish you'd be more careful, that's all."

And why should she wish for such a thing, he asked himself. Was it only that she needed him to remain well enough to look after her, to keep her housed and employed, or did she have other, more personal reasons for wanting him to remain healthy, and with her? He knew very well what he wanted the answer to be, but he did not know what secrets lay within her heart, and he was beginning to believe he never would.

"All finished, Doctor Blake," she told him then, stepping away from him, and so Lucien hopped off the table and presented her present to her with a flourish.

"For you, Mrs. Beazley."

Jean smiled at him as she took the parcel from him, and his heart was lighter for it.

"I recall you quite enjoy chocolate," he told her as she opened the paper and peered inside. Having had great success in the past with the simple pain au chocolats Lucien had elected to purchase them once again, and he watched Jean's smile grow, hoping that she was pleased with him. She had done him a kindness that morning, making his favorite breakfast for him and not taking him to task for the way he'd stumbled home drunk and gloomy the night before, and he hoped that in this particular gift she would see his own attempt at making amends, could hear him whispering _I know you, and I remember._

"They look lovely, Lucien, thank you," she told him. "I think I'll save them for after."

"Quite right, too," he said, his own good cheer fading somewhat. She was right, of course, right to save them until after her treatment, but her words reminded him of his true purpose in this place, reminded him that she was unwell, and it was time for him to administer the medication that would only continue to make her feel worse.

"Up you get," he told her, and gingerly he took the parcel from her, placed it on the desk while she settled herself on the examination table and he began to gather the things he'd need. Between them he and Mattie arranged the delivery of her medication from the hospital, kept in sealed in its neat little bags in the refrigerator next to Jean's roasts and jars of pickles, and he had fetched one already, and it took no more than a moment to collect the rest of his accoutrements.

When he turned his attention back to Jean she had already rolled up the sleeves of her dress, exposing the crook of her elbow to him, her feet daintily crossed at the ankles and her head lying back on the cushion at the raised end of the table.

"I'm sorry about this," Lucien told her as he gently took hold of her arm, guiding the needle into her vein. Every time they met one another in this place, every time he was forced to prick her delicate skin, he said the same thing, for every time, every single time, he felt terribly guilty, knowing he was the one who had laid her so low. The fact that he had done it in the hopes of saving her life reassured him later, but in the moment he always felt a kind of grief. More so today, for as he brushed his fingertips across the tender skin of her elbow he found her flesh faintly bruised, as if the repeated jabs of his needle had begun to do their work, and gave her pain. Next time he would be sure to use her other arm, and hope to spare her the worst of it.

"It's all right, Lucien," she told him, the way she always did when he apologized. Jean didn't care for needles, and so she kept her eyes closed tight as he stuck her and fastened the IV in place. The work took only seconds, and as soon as it was finished Lucien crossed the room to his desk, and Jean's eyes opened, her hands folding together neatly in her lap. They had an hour, now, or thereabouts, an hour in which they could discuss whatever they wished while the medication slipped slowly into Jean's veins. Perhaps they ought to discuss the events of the previous evening; Lucien recalled very little of it, only knew that he had walked home, drunk as a lord, and that Jean had been there waiting for him when he came stumbling through the door. What had happened after that, what they might have said to one another, he couldn't be sure, but he did know than when he woke he'd been covered by a blanket, and someone had taken the time to remove his shoes. It could only have been Jean, he knew, and he was touched by her kindness, even as self-loathing crept up his throat at the thought of her looking after him in such a state. He had expected to find her cross with him, but she had instead only been kind, and so he elected to leave that unpleasant conversation for a later date. It might be, he thought, that they needn't discuss it all. They could leave the past where it was.

There were other matters of greater urgency that could not be left unseen to, however. Whatever the state of their personal relationship Lucien was still Jean's doctor, and it was his duty, as her physician, to monitor her symptoms and seek to provide care wherever he could. With that in mind, then, he pulled out her file and his pen, and set about the delicate task of asking Jean the sorts of questions he knew she would not want to answer.

"Now, Jean," he began. "I need to keep a record of your symptoms and their severity while you're undergoing treatment. Most of your symptoms are typical side effects but we need to be sure that there isn't anything else going on."

He looked up and found Jean watching him, one eyebrow raised almost in accusation. Lucien swallowed hard, feeling rather as if he been caught in a cage with some furious lion, and continued.

"I understand you've been experiencing some nausea," he said, placing his pen to paper in anticipation of her response to his first question. "About how often, would you say?"

Across the room from him Jean huffed.

"Really, Lucien," she said, tugging absently at her dress, "I'm fine, I-"

"Jean, how often are you vomiting?"

Too often when he inquired after her health Jean grew waspish, and refused to give anything other than the vaguest of responses. That simply wouldn't do; he needed information in order to look after her, and as much as he wanted to keep her happy he couldn't allow his personal desire for her comfort to take precedence over his professional responsibility as her physician. Perhaps now was not the right moment to push her, but if he determined to wait for just the right moment he was certain it would never come. For the next hour he was the doctor, and she the patient; they would resume their more nebulous roles when they left this room, but not before.

She was quiet for a moment; Lucien watched her expectantly, took in the set of her mouth, the hard shine of her eyes, and wondered whether a few pastries would be sufficient to keep him in her good books now that he had gone and tested her resolve.

"Every day," she said at last, very quietly. "At least once or twice. Usually after I eat. More the day after treatment. Less at the weekends."

Lucien scribbled down her answer with an unsteady hand, his heart clenching unpleasantly in his chest. That would be why she'd been having such a hard time, the morning before; treatments were Tuesdays and Thursdays, and so Wednesday must have been an especially dreadful case. By Sunday she would have gone two full days without medication, and he supposed it stood to reason she would feel somewhat improved then.

"How's your appetite?"

"Considering the fact that I seem to...fall unwell after eating, I'm afraid I'm not much interested in food." The words were delivered delicately, as if Jean found it distasteful to discuss her bouts of indisposition in more direct terms, but Lucien understood what it was she was trying to tell him. Food made her ill, and so she did not eat, and the combination had left her growing thinner by the day. Something would have to be done about that, and soon.

"I'll speak with the doctors at the hospital," Lucien told her. "There might be something we can give you for the nausea, so you can eat. It's vital that we keep you fed and hydrated."

As he spoke he scribbled a note to himself; thalidomide had become a popular treatment for morning sickness, and might be used in Jean's case to mitigate her nausea. He'd want a second opinion before prescribing anything, but the thought that he might be able to offer her some aid was a cheering one.

"Now, what other symptoms are you experiencing?" he asked next.

"I think you know my hair is falling out," she told him, and when he looked up at her there was such sorrow in her eyes that he could not bear to hold her gaze. Yes, he had noticed that her soft, shiny hair no longer hung in lustrous curls, but had instead fallen limp and thin. Soon enough there would be none of it left at all, and he knew that Jean was dreading the moment when she must inevitably part with it. That was not something he could treat or stop, however, and the knowledge of his own uselessness in that department was galling.

"And I'm exhausted. I've never been so tired in all my life."

Both of those side effects were to be expected, but Lucien wrote them down anyway.

"Headaches?" he asked her. "Chills?"

"Yes, and yes," she answered.

He had noticed that as well, that she winced at loud noises and kept the fire burning in her parlor all day long. Though she did not know it, he had more than once spent a Saturday afternoon chopping wood in the garden to keep her log store full before making arrangements with a local gentleman in town to have it delivered.

"What about mood swings or hot flashes?" he asked next. "In addition to the medication you have also had a hysterectomy, and that fluctuation in hormones can have a variety of consequences. Are you having any issues with memory or your temperament?"

"Do _you_ take issue with my temperament, Doctor Blake?" she asked him in a scalding voice, and he looked up at her sharply, flummoxed by the venom in her tone. Most of the ladies under his care did not take kindly to the after effects of the change, and most of them did not enjoy discussing it with their male doctor, but he had rather hoped that Jean, being an imminently practical soul not prone to dramatics, might be less easily offended.

"I was only asking-"

"Do you find me changeable?" she snapped.

For a moment Lucien's mouth hung open; the answer was a resounding _yes,_ but he feared that if he spoke that word now she might pull the line from her arm and storm out of the room. When they first met, before this unexpected change in their circumstances, Jean had been as constant and dependable as the sunrise each morning. What pleased her, what didn't, those things had been made very clear to him, and she had seemed to him to possess a steady sort of spirit, not prone to the sudden swings from high to low that Lucien so often experienced himself. Since her operation, however, he had found her unpredictable, barking at him to leave one morning and making his favorite breakfast the next, accepting his care in one moment and spurning him when he least expected it. He had counted her variable moods as no more than a logical response to the upheaval of her life, but it occurred to him now that perhaps more was afoot. He made a note in her chart to discuss medication for the regulation of her hormones when he next visited the hospital, as well; perhaps, he thought, that might put her on more of an even keel. He kept that particular thought to himself, however, for he imagined if he told Jean what he was thinking she'd be more likely to curse him than thank him for it.

"I think you're having a very difficult time of it, Jean," he said slowly. "And given that the way you feel physically changes day by day, the way you feel emotionally will likely change with it. It's not a criticism."

Perhaps he had been too patronizing in his response; her eyes flashed murderously at him, but to his relief she did not offer further admonishment.

"Now," he said. "Is there anything else?"

"No," she said. He rather got the feeling that if there was she wouldn't mention it, but he had enough information for now. Once he'd had a chance to speak to the doctors at the hospital and adjust her medication regimen he would ask her again, and chart her progress. It was his hope that despite the discomfort their conversation clearly caused her it might be all for the good, in the end. It seemed he was hoping for that rather a lot, lately.

With no more questions to ask, and Jean quietly fuming, they passed the remainder of their hour in a pained sort of silence. The morning had started so well, had seemed to Lucien to be a herald of brighter things to come, but then he'd gone and upset her again. Not that it was difficult to do these days, upsetting her, but still, he hated to see her looking so glum, and had no notion how to put things to rights. When their time was through he gently removed the needle from her arm, and the moment he did she was on her feet. Jean left him as quickly as she was able, but it did not escape his notice that she took her pastries with her, and he smiled to himself as he packed his equipment away. However cross she might have been she had accepted his gift, and he was left hoping, yet again, that all was not lost.


	37. Chapter 37

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: those of you who follow me on tumblr know that I lost my own hair last year, and this chapter is in many ways a reflection of my own feelings on that matter.

_6 June 1959_

While it did not perhaps qualify as a miracle in the traditional sense Jean could not help but feel as if the new medications Lucien had prescribed for her were themselves, well...miraculous. The thalidomide tablets helped to settle her stomach, not always, not every time, but enough so that she could eat more than she had done for weeks. The other tablets, the ones he had delicately informed her would assist with _hormonal imbalances_ had done their work as well; her body temperature seemed to settle, no longer flinging her from frigid to sweating and back again in the space of an hour, or at least not so frequently as it previously had done. If those little pills also settled her mood, took some of the bite out of her tone when she spoke to him and restored a little of her patience, she kept those thoughts to herself. Acknowledging the improvement would have required her admitting to her previous changeability, and she was far too proud to concede that he had been correct on the matter of her disposition. It did seem to her, though, that Lucien was looking a little relieved, these days, as if he had taken some sort of gamble, and found it paying dividends.

That was not to say that everything was rosy, for Jean. She was still weak, still tired, still oversensitive to light and to noise, given to nausea, given to anger and despondency as she found herself unable to carry out her usual duties. The other medication, the one Lucien administered twice a week from the comfort of the surgery, was doing its terrible work, fighting a battle within her body, a battle for her very life, and she was left wrung out and aching as if she were wielding a sword herself. Her joints pained her, and her legs did not always want to hold her, and she was growing frustrated with the entire bloody business.

Still, though, she was determined to go to church, if she could. Lucien had taken to driving her there, walking with her to her customary seat on the pew near the back of the congregation, though he left her there, and retreated outside once she was settled. Where he went while she was praying and listening to Father Morton's homily Jean couldn't say, but she rather suspected he simply sat in his car until the service was through, and went to fetch her again when the first of the parishioners began to stagger out into the sunlight. Jean had invited him, more than once, to stay and hear the mass with her, but he had turned her down gently every time, and she didn't quite know what to make of that. Really, she didn't quite know what to make of _him._

The question of Lucien Blake and his strange behavior was not one she hoped to answer any time soon, and so she focused instead on those matters that _could_ be addressed. It was a fine cool night at the start of winter, and a Saturday at that. She'd gone two whole days without treatment, and managed to eat enough of her supper to make Lucien smile. She felt well enough, and so she began her usual preparations for church on Sunday. Having always been an organized sort of woman she liked to lay out her clothes the night before, to make sure her dress was not in want of pressing, that her best silk stockings hadn't run, that her black widow's veil was neat and tidy. She chose a handbag to match - not that she needed one, really, since Lucien would be driving her and she needn't carry anything, even her housekeys - and buffed the toes of her sharpest black pumps. Satisfied that all was in order there she made her way across the studio to her little bathroom, and stepped inside intent on doing something about her hair.

A wash and a set on Saturday nights, that was her way. She'd stopped curling her hair weeks before, however, dismayed by the number of strands she found stuck to the curlers come morning, but however thin it got she could hardly stop washing it; Jean had always valued cleanliness, and tidiness, and could not abide disarray in her personal appearance. It had been hard enough to garner respect as a poor farm girl, married quick with her belly grown big too soon afterwards, and harder still as a poor widow, without status or money or a man to bolster her reputation. Plenty of women worked, these days - most of them had gone to work during the war, and not gone back after - but not all of them, not even most, and those in service, like her, were still looked down on, generally. Owning a business, like Mrs. Murphy the florist, was respectable; cleaning other people's unmentionables was not. Jean would not give the high class ladies in town further reason to disdain her by turning out for church looking anything less than her very best.

Only she was finding that somewhat difficult, at present. In the solitude of her bathroom she untied the kerchief she kept wrapped round her hair, and studied herself for several long moments, despairing. Her face was paler than she'd like, the rise of her cheekbones and the cut of her jaw made sharper by the recent fluctuations in her weight. Her eyes still shone brightly, and the curve of her hips below the neat tuck of her waist was still attractive, she thought. But _oh,_ her hair; it was beyond salvaging.

There was simply too little of it left. It was thickest round the curve of her ear, at the nape of her neck, but from her hairline to the crown of her head the barest patch of wispy hairs clung on, dark against the paleness of her scalp.

 _I might still be able to make something of it,_ she told herself. Carefully she ran her hands over her hair, smoothing it this way and that, trying to fluff it in places, to cover the worst of it, but it was simply no use; however she moved her hair still her scalp was visible, and when she took her hands away a few more strands clung to it.

Tears gathered in the corners of Jean's eyes as she stared at those fine dark strands draped across her fingers. Her hair, soft and shiny and so long a source of pride, was fast deserting her. It had been for weeks now, but in the beginning it had not been half so noticeable as this, and around the house she wore it covered, out of sight for Lucien and Mattie, and for herself. She had not realized, not until this moment, just how dire the situation had grown; perhaps, she admitted to herself, she simply had not been looking close enough.

 _There's no hiding it,_ she thought miserably. _And come tomorrow, they'll all know._

They'd all see her at church, for the first time in a fortnight, half-bald and thin as a post. And they'd avert their eyes and tut sadly to one another. What a pitiful creature she would look, then, her poor scalp visible for the first time in her life, clinging so wretchedly to what once had been, fallen so far from her former beauty, weak and broken.

 _I'll not give them the satisfaction,_ she thought, her heart suddenly full of fire. Her hair was leaving her, like rats jumping a sinking ship, and to continue to carry on as if nothing were amiss would be to her mind a foolish attempt at staving off the inevitable. Jean had never been one to ignore or try to sugarcoat her circumstances, and she decided that this time things would be no different. Her hair was falling out, and she could not stop it, but she likewise could not keep it neat and tidy, could do nothing to make it beautiful. She would not wait for fate to take the last of her beauty from her; she would be the arbiter of her own destiny.

Under a full head of steam, then, her heart pounding madly in her chest, Jean wrenched her thin blue robe from the back of the bathroom door, wrapped it tightly over her thin satin chemise, and stormed out of her room, heading straight for the surgery.

She wasn't certain he'd be in there, not at this time of the evening, but she knew he had not left the house and he was working a murder investigation for Matthew Lawson, and so she supposed that was good a place as any to start looking for him. To her relief she found him sitting behind his desk perusing a file with a glass of whiskey close to hand when she burst through the door.

"Jean!" he called, startled. "Is everything all right?"

"Are you sober?" she demanded breathlessly.

Lucien glanced uneasily from her face to his whiskey glass and back again.

"Mostly," he admitted. "Jean, what's this-"

"Are your hands steady?" she asked, waving him off impatiently.

"Steady enough," he answered, and rose from his chair, his expression perturbed. No doubt he thought something dreadful was the matter, and of course there _was_ something dreadful the matter with her, and Jean fought a sudden, wild urge to laugh.

"I suppose you have a straight razor somewhere?" she asked him. In all the time she'd known him Lucien had kept a beard, but he kept it neatly shaped, and he would have to have something sharp close to hand to maintain the sharp lines of his beard.

"I do," he said slowly, and as he looked at her, worry written all over his face, understanding seemed to dawn in the depths of his bright blue eyes. Jean knew how she must look, bare-legged beneath her robe, her hair a pitiable mess, her own eyes wild; there could only be one reason she was asking him for a razor, and he knew it, now.

"If you're not terribly busy," she said, her own hands shaking so fiercely she had to clasp them together in front of her to hide the evidence of her anxiety, "I think perhaps the time has come for me to...well...face facts, as it were. My hair is falling out, and I will not go to church tomorrow looking like this. But I don't think I could manage the back on my own. Do you think...could you…"

"I would be honored to, Jean," he said, very softly. "I think that's a very brave choice, and I would be happy to help in any way I can."

"I don't feel brave," Jean confessed. What she felt, in truth, was mad. She had never in her life dreamed that she would ever do such a thing, shave off her beautiful hair and leave her face to stand on its own, the sharp lines of her features and the delicate wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and mouth no longer softly framed by her curls but instead stark and undeniable. She wasn't even entirely sure it was the right choice in the moment, not sure by half, but her hair wasn't coming back, and she could not bear the sight of it as it was now. Perhaps she might regret it the instant it was done, but in that moment, standing, trembling, in front of Lucien, she could not back down. This dreadful disease would not get the best of her; this one choice she would make on her own.

"I think your bathroom would be best," he told her. "I'll go and fetch my kit, and I'll meet you in there."

"Right," Jean said tightly. She felt as if her heart was on the verge of bursting out of her chest, hysteria and doubt and wild, eager certainty tearing at her. The thought crossed her mind that if she couldn't control her trembling he might well end up cutting her. _You must be calm, Jean Beazley,_ she told herself.

"Thank you, Lucien," she added, and then she turned on her heel and marched out of the surgery, filled with a fierce, grim determination. The choice had been made, and the thing would soon be done, and then there would be no turning back.


	38. Chapter 38

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: wowza I did not mean to make y'all wait so long for a new chapter! Christmas and the new year is always a busy, hectic time, for all of us, but regular updates should resume now. In the meantime, a happy new year to everyone! <3

_6 June 1959_

Lucien kept all of the essentials - a razor, a brush, a comb, a small pair of scissors, a bit of cream - in a leather travelling pouch, neatly rolled up and tucked away in the cabinet below the sink. Counter space was at a premium in the cramped downstairs bathroom, and despite his somewhat lackadaisical approach to personal tidiness he had been too long a soldier to go leaving his things strewn about. He gathered up his pouch quickly, trying his best not to think too long or too hard about what it was he meant to do. What it was Jean had _asked_ him to do. There was something monumental about her request, not just that she had come to this decision, but that she had sought _his_ help, rather than Mattie's. Oh, Mattie was asleep just now, and perhaps Jean simply couldn't wait another second longer, but still she had come to _him,_ and he was determined to do right by her, to make the experience as painless - both physically and emotionally - as he could for her. She deserved that much, he thought, deserved care and kindness and a tender hand.

With his kit tucked under his arm he marched once more out of the bathroom, and stopped off in the kitchen on the way, scooping up one of the chairs from around the table so that Jean might be able to sit comfortably while the work was done. Thus burdened he traveled across the parlor and through the open doors of the studio, back to the bathroom that had been renovated for Jean's use. The bathroom had originally belonged to his mother, and had been a sanctuary of sorts, for her; in his youth the room had been dominated by an extravagant claw-foot tub, and a pedestal sink that had always been splashed with different shades of paint. In the flurry of activity that had preceded Jean's installment in these rooms all the old odds and ends had been stripped away, replaced with modern accoutrements. It was an astronomical expense, but Lucien had justified it to himself, saying both that Jean had need of a serviceable bathroom, and that restoring the room would only add value to the house, should he one day decide to sell it. He had no notion of selling the house, now or ever, but it was somehow easier to reconcile the expense if he treated it as an investment in the property itself, and not just in the comfort of his housekeeper.

She was waiting for him, in the middle of the room, surrounded by sparkling clean tiles, and the sight of her drew him up short. Jean looked...small, somehow, wrapped in a thin blue robe he'd not seen before this night, her arms crossed tight over her chest. It had been weeks since she'd gone about the house uncovered, and for the first time he looked upon her hair as it was, in the unforgiving glow of the harsh light overhead, and he could not help but lament, for her, for what had been. That beautiful hair, dark and warm, those vibrant curls that seemed to shimmer like gold in the sun, most all of it was gone, now, and what remained was thin, and wispy, and barely clinging on. The paleness of her scalp, the wild sheen of her eyes, left her looking vulnerable, somehow, spoke so eloquently of the disease that had ravaged her organs, and the medication that was continuing that work now.

 _I did this to her,_ Lucien thought, wretched and sorrowful. He was the reason for her exhaustion, her nausea, the total upending of her life and the loss of her beautiful hair, and though he knew he had only done this thing to save her still guilt seemed to gnaw at him. _What if I was wrong?_ He asked himself. What if the treatment _was_ worse than the disease; what if instead of prolonging her life he had only stolen it from her? It would be months before he knew for a certainty, and the outcome was not guaranteed.

"Ready, then?" she asked him in an unsteady voice. Her words spurred him into action, and he began to move at once.

"I thought you'd be more comfortable if you could sit," he told her, placing the chair in front of the new vanity. It was bigger than his own, with a deep sink and a long mirror, and with Jean settling into the chair he could almost pretend they were in a barber's shop - the strangest, saddest barber's shop in all the world - and not in his mother's studio, late in the evening, on the verge of madness.

"How do you want to do this?" Jean asked. She was watching him in the mirror, and he caught her gaze there, staring at the pair of them as if watching a film, she small and scared, he huge and awkward, looming behind her with his kit in his hands.

"Erm," Lucien said. He hadn't actually thought that far ahead. Shaving, like sewing, was one of those skills that he had honed both in his medical training and in the army. Oh, the nurses often did the shaving, while he was training to become a doctor, but every now and then he had to pitch in himself, and there were all sorts of reasons a patient might be shaved. Legs, heads, arms, backs - other places, in the case of childbirth, though he'd not ever done that himself. And sewing, too; a surgeon must be able to sew, quickly and neatly, for sutures. A soldier must learn to shave his own face under all sorts of conditions, to shave his mates' heads should lice run rampant in barracks, and he must learn to sew, for an army uniform was covered in buttons, and in a warzone seamstresses were thin on the ground. He knew he was more than capable of performing the task that had been laid in front of him, but she wasn't a fellow soldier in the camp, trying to avoid a bad case of lice, and she wasn't a patient about to undergo surgery, more concerned with hygiene than aesthetics. This was _Jean,_ sitting in front of him, asking him to do this thing, and the moment felt heavy with intimacy, with comradeship. He had accepted responsibility not just for her physical appearance - which was more dear to him than he cared to consider - but for her heart, as well.

"I think," he said slowly, walking up to the counter and unrolling his kit, "we'll just dive in."

Taking a deep breath, then, he stoppered the sink, and began to fill it up with warm water.

"You won't be offended if I don't watch?" Jean asked.

Lucien looked up at the mirror, and found her with her eyes already closed, her hands clutched together in her lap so tightly that her knuckles had gone white.

"Not at all," he assured her. Actually, he rather thought things might go easier without her bright eyes following his every move.

"I never dreamed I'd do anything like this," Jean told him. There was something anxious, tense in her voice, as if she felt she _had_ to speak, as if the sound of her own thoughts was unbearable to her, as if the words simply came pouring out of her, without her consent or direction.

"No," Lucien agreed. "I don't imagine that you would have." With the sink nearly full he took a bit of cream, and began to work it into a lather on the bristly tips of his brush.

"It was different when I was young," Jean said. "We never...my mother never bothered with setting her hair."

Never had the money for it, that's what she meant to say, and Lucien knew it. In those dark days of their youth, most of the farm women wore their hair in plaits and called it good. The world had changed rather a lot since then, and even the poorest girls had curlers, to set their hair for church on Sunday, but still farmwives couldn't afford the price of a set at the beauty salon in town. Jean didn't go to the salon either, Lucien knew. _But surely she can afford it now?_ He thought to himself. _Can't she?_ He'd not given much thought to her wages, just carried on paying her whatever his father had done. She didn't have to purchase her own food, or pay for lodging, but if Lucien were being perfectly honest with himself he didn't know just how much a woman might need for the other necessities in life. Somehow he didn't believe Jean would tell him if he weren't paying her enough, particularly not now, when she was hardly able to work, but perhaps, he thought, it was a matter they ought to revisit when she was well. _If she ever is._

"And then the war came, and the styles changed. I did my best to keep up."

"Brilliantly, I'd say," Lucien told her, but the joviality in his tone sounded forced, even to his own ears. His work with the brush was done and it was time to start the business that had brought them here in the first place, and so he walked slowly round behind her, and caught her grimace in the mirror.

"I'm a bit behind the times now, I'm afraid. These young things are all wearing their hair more naturally, now."

"I always thought your hair looked beautiful." The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them, and he regretted it at once; even with her eyes closed, he could see the sorrow in her face. He'd told her that her hair was beautiful, but he was even now running his brush over her scalp, preparing to take the last of it from her.

"It takes rather a lot more than a wash and a set to make a woman beautiful, though," he added.

"Oh?"

There was something of a challenge in that one brief word, as if he had wandered into dangerous territory. Which he had, of course.

"Every woman has her own beauty," he said evenly. There was a nice thick layer of soap across the top of her head; it was time to get to work. Carefully he leaned round her, deposited his brush on the edge of the sink and took up the razor. "Her smile," he carefully set the razor at the edge of her hairline, and began to draw it back towards himself. "Her eyes," he continued, following the path of the razor with the fingertips of his left hand, trying to ensure that the skin was smooth and no stray hairs remained. "Her hips." Jean chuckled, and he rinsed the razor in the sink, watching the hairs slipping off the blade before returning to his work. "Her hands."

"Hands?" Jean asked, surprised, and Lucien smiled as once more he drew the razor back, once more followed it with his fingertips gentle against her skin.

"Oh, every part of a woman is beautiful," Lucien told her.

"Why am I not surprised you think so?"

"But none of that matters," he continued, ignoring her little tease, though it pleased him more than he could say to hear her address him so light-heartedly, "if her heart is not beautiful."

"An unusual sentiment, coming from a man," Jean muttered darkly. Lucien laughed and set his razor down, gently wiped her head with the rag he'd brought to assist in his work and once more picked up his brush. He'd decided to work in sections, not taking too much at once, one neat, short row at a time until he'd covered her entire head. It would, he realized, take some time, but he was determined not to rush; Jean would not thank him if he cut her, or left her looking anything less than tidy. "I'd think the heart would be the last thing you lot notice."

"Oh, the young can be distractible," Lucien allowed, soaping up another section of her scalp. "But a pretty face holds less appeal, as time goes on. A pretty face is worth less than good conversation, than comfort, care and understanding. A woman's arms may be the loveliest part of her, because she holds you with them."

"A poet and a barber, Doctor Blake. You are a jack of all trades."

She meant the words to sound light, he knew, but there was a hitch in her voice just the same; perhaps, he thought, he'd said too much. When did Jean last have anyone to hold? Too long, too long, and such a shame it was. Her arms were lean and strong, and they would be warm, too, he thought, though he did not know for certain.

"And what is the most beautiful part of the man, Mrs. Beazley?" he asked her, thinking it would do them good to chat softly to one another, and distract them both from the work of his hands against her scalp, the hairs that slipped off his razor each time he rinsed in in the sink. The question he'd asked her had presented her a chance to tease him further, he thought, to make them both laugh, and a laugh would do them good.

"The smile," she said, without hesitation, and neither of them laughed at all. "You can tell a lot about a man by his smile. Some of them are smug, and some of them are false, but a genuine smile is sweet, and easy to spot."

 _Is it a sweet man she wants?_ He asked himself as still he worked his hands over her head in a steady, lulling rhythm. Had her Christopher been sweet? Brought her flowers and asked if he could kiss her, and smiled sweetly when she said yes? Somehow he doubted she'd ever describe Lucien himself as _sweet_.

"And the hands," she added. "A man's whole life is written on his hands. What he does for work, whether he's a brawler, whether he's married, it's all right there."

As she spoke Lucien looked at his own hands, running tenderly over her scalp. His skin was rough, toughened from years of labor in the army and years of scrubbing in the surgery after that, tanned from the time he spent out of doors, covered in small, silvery scars, each one a story of its own. His fingers were long and dexterous, which made him an adept surgeon and a passable pianist, but the knuckle of his right forefinger was bigger than all the rest, broken in a fight and gnarled ever since. What story would Jean see, written on his hands? What would she make of it?

"So you see," Lucien said slowly. "The hair doesn't matter at all, man or woman. Does it?"

"Not if the man has a nice smile," she answered quietly.

"Or the woman nice hips."

"Lucien!" she chided him, and he grinned. He'd said it partly to make her laugh, to outrage her with his cheek, but he had also said it in no small part because he thought Jean's hips were rather fine, and that was as close as he'd ever come to being able to tell her so.

For a moment they were quiet; Lucien folded his rag over and gently wiped the soap from the most recently shorn stretch of Jean's scalp, and followed it with his palm. The skin beneath his hand was soft and smooth, tender, revealed to the world for the first time now since birth. _I shall have to remind her to wear a hat when she goes out,_ he thought as he touched her; it was winter, but still the sun could burn skin so pale and baby-soft as this.

"Still, though," Jean said. "A woman ought to have some hair." Her voice was full of lament, mourning for what she had lost, what she was losing even as Lucien once more set his razor to her head. It did not surprise him, that she was so preoccupied with the matter of her hair; appearance mattered a great to deal to Jean, and a great deal more to the people she socialized with, and those expectations of beauty and cleanliness which had been instilled in her from birth were all but impossible to fight against.

"There are plenty of cultures all over the world where women shave their heads," Lucien pointed out. "And their men think them beautiful, and love them regardless."

"That may be true out in the world," Jean said darkly, "but this is Ballarat. Who could love…"

His heart dropped; she didn't finish her sentence, and he was left to fill it in himself. Who could love a woman without hair? Who could love Jean as she was? Was that what worried her? Did she lay awake at night, thinking of her future, wishing for love and fearing that now it would never come? _Christ,_ he could think of nothing more devastating than that. She was so wonderful, was Jean, beautiful and clever, resilient and brave; she nurtured him, and made him laugh, and had turned this house into a home for the first time in Lucien's adult life. There was, he thought, no one more deserving of love than Jean, and yet she had none, worried she never would. If only it were within his power, he would have given it to her, all of the love that she had been denied, all of the love that by rights should have belonged to a woman as lovely as she.

He could not say such a thing to her, however. No matter the warmth of this moment, no matter how his heart cried out for her, desperate to soothe her, he knew that she would not welcome such a statement from him. What was he to her; a doctor, an employer, a friend, perhaps? None of those things granted him the liberty to speak to her of love. How then could he possibly answer her?

"It is not a woman's hair a man comes to love," he said, very quietly. He had nearly finished his work, and they were still, the pair of them hardly breathing as his razor traced over the back of her neck, carefully sheering away the last of her hair. "And you, Jean, have so much more to offer the world than your hair."

"Thank you," she breathed into the silence of the bathroom, and at last Lucien was done. He set his razor down on the sink, and one last time dragged the rag over her head, smoothing across her skin. She was warm to the touch, and soft, and he felt strangely protective of her, in this moment when she had delivered all of her doubts, her hopes, her vulnerability into his hands.

"All done," he said, brushing his hands over her shoulders, making sure no hair remained on her robe. "Will you look now, Jean?"

"I suppose I must," she said, and then she drew in a breath so deep he heard it, and he watched in the mirror as she opened her eyes, and took in the sight of herself, now completely hairless. The breath escaped her suddenly, sharply, and she reached for her head at once, running her own hand over the same skin Lucien had so recently touched. He watched her in silence, taking in not just her expression but the sight of her as she was now, without the hair to hide her. In the mirror she was, he thought, completely lovely. Her head was smooth and round, and her high, sharp cheeks, her soft red lips, her strong jaw, were so pronounced, now, the fierceness of her features so plain that he could not help but look at her. It was, he thought, a face that must be seen, that demanded the attention of every eye in the room, a face that any man would find himself in thrall to with one single glance, a face that had been set loose now, unfettered by convention or the softness of her curls, glorious to behold, proud and beautiful.

"Well," she said, a bit wetly, still watching herself unblinking. "That's that, then."

"Did I do all right, Jean?" he asked, a bit anxiously. He rather thought he had completed his task competently, completely, but he needed to know that she approved, for if she did not, he was determined to do whatever he could to make things right.

"You did wonderfully, Lucien, thank you. It's not your work I take issue with."

"Well, Jean, I'm looking at you now, and I see nothing to take issue with at all."

In the mirror she caught his eye, and smiled at him, tears in the corners of her eyes, and he could not stop himself; she was so beautiful, and so sad, and he longed, with all his heart, to take some of that sorrow from her, and so he bowed his head, and gently pressed a kiss to the soft skin on the top of her head. She drew in her breath sharply, and he stepped away from her quickly, gathering up his things and hoping that in the movement of his body his own face was hidden from her sight, for he knew that if she looked at him then she would see in his eyes all the care he felt for her, all the affection and the grief and the terrible, slowly growing want that was building deep within his heart.


	39. Chapter 39

_11 June 1959_

"It's so wonderful to see you, Jean," Susan Tyneman gushed, her face a perfect picture of insincere concern. "Thank you so much for taking the time to see me, I know you have so much on your plate just now."

Susan stood between Jean and the warmth of the fireplace in Jean's little parlor, clutching Jean's pale hand in both of her own thick, clammy ones, her eyes raking hawkishly over Jean's face all the while. For perhaps the third time since hearing Susan's falsely cheery voice ringing through the house Jean wished she could simply disappear; she was too tired to stand, to greet Susan properly, and she wore her faded blue robe over faded pink pajamas, a soft white blanket covering her from the waist down, her head wrapped in an old pink scarf. She looked every inch the invalid, and she knew it, felt it, hated it, down to her very bones.

Shaving her head had provided a few days' reprieve; it had been liberating, in a way, to cast aside the expectations of her society and make herself anew, bolder, better, braver, than she had imagined herself to be. She'd gone to church the next morning with her head held high, but by the afternoon she'd been forced to retreat to her bed, too exhausted and wrung out from the day's excitement to do anything more than sleep, and for the next three days she'd only left her bed to shuffle unsteadily across the floor to the loo and back, lacking the strength to anything more. Mattie had come in to see her at mealtimes, brought food that turned Jean's stomach and companionship she dearly longed for, but the strain of her continued convalescence was proving difficult to weather at present, made all the more unbearable by the arrival of the one person Jean wanted to see least in all the world. Well, perhaps not the very least; Patrick would have been a less welcome sight than his wife.

"My, isn't this...cozy?" Susan said, dropping Jean's hand and glancing around the room with one eyebrow raised. No doubt this suite of rooms, which had been decorated quickly and according to Mattie's interpretation of Jean's own taste, did not quite meet with Susan's standards. The studio was, however, Jean's favorite place in all the world, and she would not allow anyone to speak a word against it.

"Lucien put rather a lot of time and effort into fixing the studio up," Jean said, but too late she realized her mistake; she'd referred to her employer by name, with significantly less formality than she usually afforded him in Mrs. Tyneman's company, and she had also just confirmed that it was Lucien who had chosen to renovate these rooms, rooms Jean now occupied. Of course he had done it for her sake, for the sake of her comfort and happiness, but Susan bloody Tyneman didn't need to know that. God only knew how the woman would twist and misrepresent that little detail in later conversations; she was a notorious gossip, and Jean had just handed her quite the delicious tidbit. Jean could feel the beginnings of a headache stirring behind her eyes.

"Please, have a seat," she said before Susan could remark on the effort Lucien had gone to for the sake of the studio. It was practical, but polite, as well; Susan would expect the invitation, had not come here to stand lording over Jean for a moment before flitting away again. She had come to _chat._

"Everyone at the theater sends their love," Susan said airily as she settled onto the far end of the sofa. It did not escape Jean's notice that Susan's back remained ramrod straight, as if she did not want to allow too much of her fine dress to come into contact with Jean's serviceable leather sofa.

"Oh, please thank them for me," Jean said, because she knew that she must. "I suppose you'll be starting rehearsals soon."

The players always put on a show in the winter, and Susan always took the lead role, and Robert Manifold always watched Jean's audition with kind, sympathetic eyes before handing her a bit part; that was how it went, year after year. Despite the pedestrian nature of the material and the galling way Jean's talents were always overlooked in favor of Mrs. Tyneman's money, Jean always anticipated the performance each year. It was a chance to step outside herself, to do something different, to _be_ something different, if only for a little while, to be a part of something grand. A chance that had been summarily ripped away from her; this conversation was proving difficult enough, and Jean was certain she could not make it through one single rehearsal, and so she would not be able to perform.

"Oh, yes!" Susan said, smug and delighted to be afforded the opportunity to brag. "It's _The Importance of Being Earnest,_ this year. You're speaking to the next Gwendolen Fairfax."

 _Of course I am,_ Jean thought.

"Congratulations, Susan, that's lovely," she said. Conciliatory and courteous, that was the role Jean must play now; now, and always, when it came to Susan Tyneman, who had enough money and influence to shatter Jean's whole world, if she so chose.

"Poor Robert's absolutely beside himself with worry," Susan continued. "We only had two gentlemen turn up for auditions, and now he's had to cast women in some of the men's roles, and he'll be playing Earnest himself."

"I'm sure he'll do a fine job of it."

Robert always did a fine job of it; he did a fine job of everything. _Fine,_ in fact, might have been the single best descriptor for Robert himself in all the world. He was perfectly _fine,_ well-mannered and soft-spoken and kind, well-read and yet not arrogant. He was fine, and warm, and he was always careful to hide the particular attention he paid to Jean from the eyes of the other actors. It was always Jean who volunteered to assist him in putting things away after rehearsals - the rest of them couldn't be bothered to do something so menial as _clean_ \- and they often shared very pleasant chats during that time. During the previous season's production, when old Doctor Blake had been so unwell, Robert had even taken to driving Jean to and from rehearsals, had offered his own assistance when he saw that it was needed. If things had been different…

If things had been different, Jean would have moved out of the house in April, would have taken on a new job at the Royal Cross and set up her own home elsewhere. She would have no one else to fuss over, and her time would have been her own, every bit of it. She would not have known Lucien half so well as she did now, and she would not have thought of him much. She would have been _healthy,_ and playing one of the men's parts in this season's show, and when Robert drove her home from rehearsal she could have invited him in for a cup of tea, and no one would have seen, and maybe…

"But I dare say that Ethel Bridges has been a comfort to him," Susan added, watching Jean slyly. Ethel Bridges was new to town, a pretty widow of middle age and independent means whom Jean had first encountered at Sacred Heart some months before. "He's cast her as Lane, and the pair of them have been quite cozy lately. I wouldn't be surprised if there's an announcement by Christmas, you know. Robert has been sorely lacking for company since his wife died, and I'm sure he's no doubt grateful for the attention."

Every word Susan spoke had been carefully chosen, of that Jean had no doubt. _That_ had been the true purpose of this visit, Jean realized; Susan wanted to see for herself how Jean was faring, wanted to be able to bring news of her dreadful condition back to the players and listen to them all tut about what a generous soul Susan was, looking after the less fortunate, but more than that she clearly was delighted to deliver this news herself, this news that Robert was interested in someone else. Perhaps Susan had been paying more attention last season than either Jean or Robert realized; perhaps she had noticed something was brewing, and was eager to have her suspicions proved correct.

Jean wanted to scream.

"That's wonderful," she said. "I do hope that they will be happy, whatever happens."

If Jean had been well, perhaps Ethel never would have caught Robert's eye; oh, Jean wasn't devoted to the idea of pushing her own friendship with the man into the realm of romance, but still the news stung, the realization that one more opportunity had been taken from her. Perhaps she never would have warmed to the idea of love with Robert at all, but perhaps she _might_ have, and now she'd never know. Someone else had taken her place; even Robert bloody Manifold didn't need her, any more.

 _If I had known last season,_ Jean thought to herself as Susan prattled on, _would I have behaved any differently? If I'd known it was my last chance, my only chance, would I have taken it?_

There was a dissonance between her heart and her head; her heart cried out for love, devastated at having lost it, and her head reminded her that Robert bored her to tears. It was for the best, she tried to tell herself, that she had been removed from the picture. Robert was free to pursue someone who wanted him, more than Jean had ever done, and she had spared them both the indignity of a half-hearted courtship. Everyone seemed to be getting on just fine without her, the wheels of the world turning on, and no one seemed to need Jean at all, any more.

* * *

For the better part of half an hour Susan Tyneman bent her ear with bits of gossip and thinly veiled barbs, and Jean was glad to see the back of her when she finally left. The news Susan brought was most unwelcome, and left Jean in the foulest of moods. Anger and disappointment and idle chatter had made for thirsty work, and she rose slowly from her seat, tested her legs and found them strong enough to bear her out into the kitchen in search of a cup of tea. It was mid afternoon, and a Thursday besides, and the time for Jean's standing appointment with Lucien was fast approaching. It did not surprise her, then, that as she neared the kitchen she heard the sound of his voice coming from the surgery.

It would only be polite to offer him a cup of tea, since she was making it anyway, and so Jean changed course, shuffling along the corridor until the door to the surgery swung wide and she stopped in her tracks.

"I'm glad we could have this chat," a soft voice was saying to Lucien inside the surgery. A soft voice, Jean realized with a growing dread, that belonged to a woman who had been introduced to them both months before, during that unpleasant case with the young man who had been on the verge of hanging. Joy McDonald had returned to Ballarat.

"As am I, Joy," Lucien answered her warmly. Jean could almost picture the smile on his face, the way he would reach out and take her hand in both of his, the caring country doctor, alone with a beautiful woman.

"Perhaps we could see more of each other in the future," Joy added, and as she heard those words Jean turned tail and fled.

As it was Jean was not particularly fond of Joy McDonald, who had a presumptuous air and beautiful clothes and had very nearly demolished Lucien's reputation. To be confronted with the woman now, now when Jean was wretched and so poorly attired, would be a devastating blow from which she was certain she would not ever recover. It would go more easily for Jean if she did not have to see Joy, did not have to watch the other woman's eye roving over her own pitiful appearance, did not have to hear her half-hearted sympathies, did not have to see Lucien, gallant and handsome, standing beside her, the pair of them so perfectly matched, so lovely each in their own way. Instead she rushed back to her room, back to her sofa, back to her blanket and her fire, tucking herself in and trying to ignore the terrible voice that whispered to her of her own uselessness. Robert had his Ethel, and Lucien had his Joy, and Jean had nothing at all. It was the way things were, and always would be.


	40. Chapter 40

_11 June 1959_

"Are you feeling all right, Jean?" Lucien asked apprehensively as he once more inserted a needle into the bruised crook of Jean's elbow, as he watched her leaning back against the examination table, her eyes tightly closed. She looked wan today, and pale - well, paler than usual - and her pulse had been remarkably high when he'd pressed his fingertips to the delicate skin of her wrist.

"I'm perfectly fine," she answered, not bothering to open her eyes. She did not look fine, not at all, but he had learned from experience that she did not appreciate that sort of remark about her personal appearance. There was no point in pressing the issue when it would only serve to make her cross and combative; he'd not get his answers from her that way. She looked tired, and she was terribly thin, and so he resolved himself to watch her closely at dinner, and see that she had enough to eat; it was the best he could do for her, at present.

"There's some tea there," he told her, settling down into the well-cushioned chair he often dragged to her side for their afternoon appointments. "And a biscuit, if you're so inclined."

The ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of her pale pink lips, but though her eyes were closed that little smile seemed sad, somehow; everything about her seemed sad, from her carefully folded hands to the furrow of her brow. He did not have to wonder what was troubling her, for surely everything was troubling her, just now. How dreadful it must have been, he thought, to be so weak, so tired, so unable to continue going about her life as she pleased. For a woman like Jean, so accustomed to doing for herself and for others, he supposed it must have been particularly difficult to bear. Confinement could drive even the fiercest soul mad, as he well knew.

"I've been looking into that death at the factory," Lucien told her when still she did not speak. They often discussed his cases while Jean was undergoing treatment, and he always enjoyed it, was always grateful for the brief reprieve it afforded them both from morose thoughts about their circumstances. Perhaps a distraction was just what Jean needed today, a little conversation to lift her spirits.

"The poor man who was killed in that accident?" she asked. Her voice was thin, as if she were only just clinging to consciousness; perhaps, he thought, she was simply tired, and perhaps he would do better to let her rest. A question had been asked, however, and so he had no choice but to answer it.

"It wasn't an accident," he told her grimly. Jean was not watching him, and there would be no more patients today in any case, and so he carefully shrugged out of his jacket, began to roll back his shirtsleeves as he settled himself more comfortably into his chair. "The man was hit in the head with something, and then pushed into the machine. Now, he still might not have died if those bloody machines had safety switches-"

"But he was attacked, and now you're eating crow," Jean said dryly.

Lucien laughed, a bit ruefully. "Yes, I suppose I am. I was - I _am -_ so bloody angry with Patrick for ignoring my recommendations, for the way he treats those people, but I can't lay all the blame on him." _But I can lay enough; that man might still be alive, if it weren't for Patrick's heartlessness._

"I saw your Mrs. McDonald had written an article in the paper about the conditions at the factory."

"Yes," Lucien mused, rubbing at his beard. "She's not too happy with me, at present."

"Oh, I'm sure you'll find some way to make it up to her."

The comment had no doubt been intended to sound lighthearted, but Jean's attempt at teasing him fell rather flat; though her eyes were still closed, though she was still refusing to look at him, there was something...oh, something almost hopeless about her. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but he knew Jean well enough now to recognize when something was not as it ought to be. Why should talk of Joy leave her looking so terribly sad? They'd not discussed Joy much, he and Jean; Jean knew, of course, that Joy had put Lucien in a tight spot during the case with the poor lad who was set to be executed, but the two ladies had not interacted beyond a brief introduction in the doorway. Had Jean had time to form an opinion of Joy after such a short encounter? He couldn't imagine a single reason why Jean might devote herself to consideration of Joy at all; Jean had far more important things to worry about.

Then again, he thought, perhaps there _was_ a reason. A reason a woman might take a dislike to a beautiful stranger darkening her doorstep. But surely, he thought, Jean could not be _jealous_ of Joy, not Jean who was so lovely, so brave and strong and self-assured, who by her simple presence enriched his life. What did Joy have that Jean did not? Independence perhaps, he supposed; Jean had been on the cusp of starting out on her own when she fell ill, and perhaps she resented seeing Joy living her life free of such burdens. It had to be that, he told himself.

"I'm sure I will," he said, very softly.

"She's lovely, Lucien. I'm sure you two could...make one another quite happy."

For a moment Lucien stared at her, dumbfounded. He was leaning towards her now, his forearms resting lightly on his knees, close enough to touch her, if he dared, close enough to see the way her mouth tightened with displeasure. Was that what she thought? He asked himself now. Did Jean think he had designs on Joy, that he intended to be anything more than friendly with her? Truth be told he might have done; there was a great sort of potential about Joy, a woman who was beautiful and compassionate, clever and headstrong, a woman who could stand up to him, whose curiosity nearly rivaled his own. If he had tried to reach for her she might have let him; they were after all both of them unattached, both of them a bit lonely, both of them unconcerned with gossip or the petty mores of the day. He _might_ have considered her quite seriously, but he never had done, and he knew he never would. It was not Joy's face he saw when he closed his eyes, was not Joy's counsel he yearned for in times of distress, was not Joy's happiness that concerned him above anything else. That very afternoon Joy had stood in the surgery and offered him an opportunity to pursue her, if he so wished, and he had demurred without hesitation, told her that much of his attention was taken up in looking after Jean, and would be for quite some time.

 _That's very generous of you,_ Joy had said, sounding almost surprised that he had turned down the chance for drinks with her in favor of caring for his ailing housekeeper. _Jean is very dear to me,_ he'd answered before he could stop himself, and there had been a flicker of something in Joy's eyes, an understanding that was only just now beginning to dawn on Lucien himself. No, he had not considered pursuing anything romantic with Joy, not because she was unsuitable, but because his interests lay in an entirely different direction.

"Oh, I'm not sure about that," he said before he could stop himself. "Joy's a friend, but that's all."

He wanted to say more; his heart nearly burst with the need to say more. It was always Jean he came to when he faced a riddle he could not solve, and he wanted to bring her this one. _There's someone else, you see,_ he wanted to tell her. _Someone lovelier, someone dearer, someone I want far more. But I don't know if she'll have me, and I can't bear the thought of losing her. What should I do, Jean?_

"Really, Lucien, don't be silly," she told him, and still he watched her, confused and full of questions. "We only get so many chances in life. Don't waste this one. Mrs. McDonald is perfect for you. She's beautiful, and she's at least as clever as you, and she's strong. She can offer you everything you need, and I'm sure you'd make her quite happy in turn. At least until you turned the house upside down in one of your experiments."

"Jean...I…" his voice trailed off, his head and his heart at war with one another. He knew what he _wanted_ to tell her, how he wanted to extol her virtues and spill out the desperate yearnings of his own heart, but he feared the consequences of such a declaration. His head counseled prudence, his heart cried for truth, and he struggled to find a way to bring them into harmony. "What about you, eh?" he said. Her lips parted as if to demand he explain himself, her eyebrow quirking in distress though she kept her eyes closed, and he rushed to continue. "Surely you've had your fair share of suitable partners, but you've turned them down, too. You know how it is, when someone just...isn't right for you."

To his very great distress he watched as Jean's whole body seemed to draw up tight with tension; she reached up and palmed her eyes, as if wiping away the trace of some tears he had not seen fall.

"I do know what it's like," she said in a quavering voice, "to have a chance and to lose it. I'll not have another, not now. That's why you must follow your heart, Lucien, before it's too late. Before you end up alone," she took a shuddering breath, "and empty."

 _Empty._ What a terrible word that was; the sound of it chilled him to the bone. He knew what she meant, understood now what he had not known before, the reason for her sorrow. The cancer had taken everything from her, her strength, her independence, her beautiful hair, but it had taken her womb, too. Some women felt such terrible grief upon the loss of a piece of themselves that had so dominated their lives up to that point, that sacred heart of them where their children had grown, where they _might_ have grown, had fate been kinder to them. And perhaps Jean's days of carrying children were behind her, but she was an old-fashioned sort of woman, and he worried, now, that she had taken that loss harder than he'd realized. She must have done, if she could speak of herself - and he was certain that she was - so cruelly. It seemed to him that her illness and the loss of everything that might have been had left her feeling as if her life were over already, and he could think of nothing more terrible than that. When she recovered - and she _would_ recover, he told himself, for he could not bear the thought of the alternative - she would be beautiful and healthy and strong once again, and he did not wish to see her give up hope of ever feeling the light of love upon her face once more.

"You aren't," he said fiercely, reaching for her hand. She gasped at the contact, her marvelous eyes flying open and revealing to him the thinnest sheen of tears. "You aren't empty, Jean. And you're not alone."

"Look around you, Lucien," she told him miserably. "What have I got? A bed that isn't mine, in a house that doesn't belong to me, two sons who hardly think of me and a man who pities me too much to throw me out on the street."

"No," he said, more sharply than he intended to, still clinging tightly to her hand, affronted by the very suggestion. "It isn't pity, Jean. Never mistake the way I feel for you for pity."

He stared at her, beseeching, watched her eyes go wide beneath the pink scarf she'd wrapped around her bare head. _Christ,_ this was killing him, to see her so afraid, so miserable, to know the part he'd played in bringing her here. She was beautiful, so beautiful, even now, in this moment when everything they were and everything they might have been seemed to be shattering around them. If that was what she thought, that he only pitied her, that her continued presence in this house was only an act of charity, it must be corrected, he thought, for nothing could be further from the truth.

"Lucien," she said, her voice wobbly but carrying with a note of warning. He hardly heard her; his heart had won the battle at last, and freed him from the last of his tentative restraint. Without hesitation he moved closer to her, reached for her with his free hand, cradling her cheek in his palm, feeling the warmth of her tender skin against his own.

"You are not alone," he told her fiercely. "And whatever you need, whatever you want...everything, Jean. You can have everything. You _deserve_ everything." _Every piece of me, and everything I have to give._ It was madness, and he knew it, to allow his reckless heart to speak to her so plainly, but he could not stop it, now. Her continued sorrow was unbearable to him, but so too was his continued silence. Too many times he had touched her, felt her touch him, and been left wondering what might have been, if only he were braver. Too many times he had heard her voice washing over him, and felt such peace that he would have called it holy. Too many times the curve of her hip, the line of her jaw had entranced him, left him aching in ways he did not want to contemplate. He was contemplating them now, the fullness of her lips and the question of what might be, if only he took this chance. If only he gave himself over to his heart, and the yearning he felt to hold her.

Jean did not answer him; tears were rolling down her pale cheeks, damp beneath his hands, such sorrow and doubt in her eyes as to stab him sharp as knives. Her grief was unbearable to him, and so he did then what he had wanted to do for weeks, and closed the space between them, gently pressing his lips to hers.


	41. Chapter 41

_11 June 1959_

For one single, shining moment, the world itself stood still. The noise in Lucien's head, his endless churning thoughts and fears and questions, went silent as the grave. His hands ceased their trembling, and the breath froze in his lungs. No bird chirped beyond the surgery window, no telephone rang, no fist came knocking upon the door. All was frozen, silent, waiting.

He kissed her. _Was_ kissing her, his hands gently cradling her sweet face, her tears slick beneath his palms, her lips soft and warm pressed to his, the taste of her seeping into his very bones. For weeks, for months, she had been his primary concern; even Matthew Lawson had remarked on it, a time or two, how Lucien had changed, how eager he was to be home, now, and not out in the world. Matthew knew now, as did everyone else in town, what waited for Lucien at home, what had caused this sudden transformation of his spirit. It was Jean, all Jean, singular, glorious Jean, the reason he rose from his bed in the morning and the reason he struggled to find sleep in the evening. She was the sun, and he was growing in the light of her beauty. Growing, changing, she had uncovered a steadfastness within him that he thought had long since left him behind. He owed no fealty to queen and country; he was loyal only to her, and it was high time he did something about it.

 _Christ,_ but it was more wonderful than he'd imagined, the relief, the shocking joy of it. Jean reached for him, her delicate hands wrapping around his wrists, and the touch of her skin, soft and cold, against his own made him shiver and press himself that much harder against her, eager for more. She was still hooked up to the IV and so it would not do to jostle her overmuch. Her heart was wounded, and so it would not do to demand more from her than she was willing to give. He only kissed her, overcome with the way fondness and admiration and familiarity had all at once coalesced into love within his chest. He knew it now, could give a name to what he felt for her, and he hoped, oh, how he hoped that she might feel the same.

Those tender hands held onto him for a moment, but then she tugged against his wrists, pulling his hands away from her face even as she tilted her head back from him, and Lucien relented. The world came rushing back to him at once; his chest was heaving, for he could not recall when last he'd drawn a breath, and his heart was pounding like mad in his chest, and he could not stop the foolish grin that spread across his face.

"Don't," Jean whispered wretchedly, turning her head to hide her face from his hungry gaze, and all the joy and relief of a moment before vanished like a wisp of smoke, for she was crying, still, and refusing to look at him. Gingerly, mindful of the needle still stuck in the crook of her elbow, she directed his hands away from her body and let them drop uselessly down at the side of the examination table.

"Jean," Lucien breathed her name, suddenly mortified. Had he been a fool? She had been talking of love and missed opportunities, had told him to pursue Joy with a sorrow in her voice he had taken for disappointment, and after all the tiny intimacies they had shared over the course of her illness Lucien had taken those words to mean she cared for him, that she might welcome his kiss, and the reminder that love was not beyond her. It was not too late for Jean to find love, for love sat in the chair at her bedside, watching her with beseeching eyes. Surely that ought to have pleased her, but she looked as aggrieved as if he'd cursed her.

"Please," she said, still refusing to look at him, "don't make this harder than it has to be."

And what the bloody hell was he supposed to say to that? He stared at her, aghast and utterly confused.

"Jean, I-"

"Don't say that you love me," she cut him off quickly. "I couldn't bear it."

Lucien scrubbed his hand over his face, cursing himself for his own folly. She wanted no part of him it seemed, and he had gone and ruined their friendship and any chance of winning her round by pressing his advances where they were not wanted. What sort of a beast could do such a thing to a woman as kind and lovely as Jean? How could he have read her so wrong? And how could he beg her forgiveness without accusing her of leading him on? He felt as if he were plummeting madly through the air, no parachute to save him, no net to catch him, hurtling towards the ground below and nothing to stop the crushing impact.

"Whatever this is, whatever you think you feel for me, it isn't love, Lucien. If you just stopped to think for a moment I'm sure you'd see-"

"What makes you think I haven't thought about it already?" he asked her quietly. The situation was beginning to come more clearly into focus now; he had been swung from joy to panic to misery so quickly his mind was still spinning, but he could hear the regret in her voice. She might have doubted the truth of his love but surely, he thought, surely that did not mean she did not want it. A woman as brave as Jean, a woman who had loved so completely and lost so terribly, would not waste her heart on anything less than a true, enduring love. She only thought him changeable, but if he could only make her see that what he felt for her was _real,_ she would not spurn him then, he thought.

"You're just afraid," she breathed. "I'm dying," he tried to interrupt her, but she ignored him completely and carried on, "and you feel guilty for the part you had to play in it. That's all this is. Don't blame yourself, Lucien. You've done all you could. Just let me go in peace, don't complicate matters by making promises you can't keep."

It would have hurt him less if she'd struck him. He wanted to tell her _no,_ no she wasn't dying, no it was not only guilt that compelled him, _no_ he would not change his mind once she was well again. Their enforced proximity over the long weeks of her illness had revealed her character to him, and in her he had found a heart like his own, curious and bruised, hopeful but wary, longing for more and yet at home in Ballarat. Knowing her as he did now, how could he not love her? How could she not recall the way he'd kissed her head that night he'd shaved her hair, the way he'd held her hand in hospital, the lengths he had gone to in order to make her comfortable; how could she not see that it was care for _her_ that compelled him, not some attempt to assuage his own guilty conscience? And if those acts alone had not been enough, what in God's name would it take to make her see the truth?

"Jean, I...I...I certainly never meant to offend you," he said haltingly. "But surely, you must know, you must see-"

"If it's all right, Lucien, I think I'd prefer to finish this session alone. I know how to manage unhooking the IV when it's done. Please."

She was still refusing to look at him, but he could see the tears sparkling on her cheeks, could see the way her lip trembled. However much he might have disagreed with her, however much he might have longed to stay and plead his case, he was not so selfish as to linger when she'd asked him to go. The sight of him pained her, that was clear to see, and he would not inflict further injury upon her.

"If that's what you need," he agreed heavily, and rose from his chair. In silence he collected his jacket and left the surgery behind, his heart breaking with every step that he took.

* * *

The moment he was gone Jean began to weep in earnest, great wracking sobs that shook her whole body until she was forced to turn and retch the meager contents of her stomach into the pan Lucien kept by the side of the examination table for just such an emergency. For one solitary moment Jean had wanted, more than anything, to give into his kiss. To have two strong arms to hold her, his tender voice whispering in her ear, his soft lips warm and willing against her own, was everything her heart longed for. _He_ was everything her heart longed for, brilliant and wild and so terribly, damnably kind. It would have been easy, so easy, far easier than this, to have simply given in, and taken from him what solace she could.

It would have been easy, but it would not have been right. Lucien had lost one love already, ripped away from him in violence and grief, and he deserved an easier love now. A love like Joy McDonald, healthy and whole, the perfect companion to stand beside him for all the rest of his days. Jean could not give that to him; her own life was fading. She felt it slipping through her hands, growing weaker by the day, saw the anguish in Lucien's eyes as he fought so hard to save her, and yet failed to put an end to her hurt. One day, perhaps one day soon, she would be gone, and she did not want to leave a legacy of pain, did not want to add to the list of losses for which Lucien mourned. In time she was certain he would come to see, as she did, that he was only holding onto her so fiercely because he was too kind to let her go, and he would be better off with a love that did not hurt him so deeply.

But oh, this love hurt her now. For weeks, for months, she had felt herself drawn closer and closer to him, fascinated and exasperated, delighting in all his tender gestures of regard, from the sweet pastries he brought to her to the way he had bowed his head at her bedside and whispered a prayer along with her. His strength, his handsome face, his gentle hands, he had become her whole world, everything she ever wanted, and everything she never could have. Her illness was the only thing that bound them; if she had not fallen sick she would have left his home behind months before, and nothing would ever have come of their acquaintance with one another. Enforced proximity could encourage emotions to grow where otherwise they might not, and Jean was certain that if Lucien only directed his attention elsewhere he would find something far more engaging than she. It would be better, she thought, to put a stop to it now, rather than set her hopes on him and find them dashed later. It would be better to put a stop to it now, and not let the situation grow out of control. She'd not make him a widower a second time over; he deserved better, and so did she.

Her head might have known the truth, but her heart lamented, and spilled out her bitter regrets until she was left wrung out like the washing, so weak she could hardly move. Above her the IV at last was empty, and so she carefully unhooked herself from that contraption, but she did not have the strength to move. She only curled on her side, tucked her chin against her chest, and closed her eyes, praying for a release from this sorrow, this pain. It did not come, but as she lay there sleep stole over her, and quieted the miserable voice of her heart for a time.


	42. Chapter 42

_24 June 1959_

"Your hands are freezing," Mattie said, catching both of Jean's hands between her own, rubbing them gently while she watched Jean with an anxious expression Jean didn't care for one little bit.

"I'm all right, Mattie," she said. It was a lie, and they both knew it; she'd been too weak to get out of bed for the last two days. Yesterday Lucien had dragged the IV and stand into her bedroom so he could administer her treatment right there at her bedside, rather than carry her to the surgery. After the way things had fallen apart between them, neither Jean nor Lucien could bear such proximity, and she was grateful for the sudden appearance of a previously undiscovered sense of practicality in him.

"Do you need anything?" Mattie asked earnestly. The table at Jean's bedside was already laden day with a fresh cup of tea, a tall glass of juice, three pieces of toast, and a biscuit, and the blankets that covered her were warm, and there was a fire burning cheerfully on the other side of the studio, and Mattie was with her; no, there was nothing else Jean needed, just now. Nothing that Mattie could bring to her, at any rate.

"I have everything I need right here," Jean said, and she turned her hand over within Mattie's grasp, and squeezed the girl's fingers gently. "I'm just tired."

 _Tired_ might have been the understatement of the century; it was nearly dinner time, and Jean's body was so exhausted, so weary, so completely drained that she hadn't been able to manage the short walk from her bed to the bathroom without Mattie to hold her up. Even now she could hardly keep her eyes open, nevermind that she'd slept for most of the day already. It was galling, finding herself incapable of completing even the simplest of tasks; perhaps someone else would have adjusted to their confinement by now, after so many difficult weeks, but Jean still found that the bonds of idleness chafed her.

"Tell me the news," Jean urged her companion then. "What's been happening while I've been sleeping?"

She hoped that Mattie might have some lighthearted chatter with which to distract her, might have stories of new engagements and broken promises and interesting patients and troublesome neighbors. It would be nice to laugh with Mattie about simple things, and forget, however briefly, the grief that troubled her own spirit. She had set Lucien free, sent him out into the world to find a woman who could be everything he needed her to be, to turn his sights away from Jean as she slowly faded, but there was no freedom for her in such release. When she closed her eyes she still saw his face, the hurt in his eyes, still felt the fleeting warmth of his kiss, and each time nearly wept with bitter disappointment. It would be easier to talk about other people's troubles than to face her own, but Mattie did not offer her a reprieve.

Instead her face took on a serious expression, and she leaned closer to Jean, perched on the edge of a chair at her bedside and whispering as if someone might overhear them, when there was no one else in the house at all save the pair of them.

"I'm worried about Lucien," Mattie confessed. "He isn't sleeping. And every bottle on the drinks cart in his study is empty."

That was the last thing Jean wanted to hear. It had taken him hard, she knew, her rejection of him, but Joy McDonald was still sniffing around, and she'd thought that by now he would have taken that lady up on her invitation, and forgotten the momentary madness that had pushed him to kiss Jean instead. Jean remained firmly convinced that whatever feelings he might harbor for her were more guilt than love, and she'd hoped Mrs. McDonald might help soothe his wounded pride. Apparently she'd been wrong; he'd been up all hours, and drinking himself blind, and that meant he was hurting, too, even as she was. She could not bear the thought of it; she could not carry his grief alongside her own.

"Have you talked to him about it?" Jean asked carefully. Of course she had not mentioned their falling out to Mattie, and she had no intention of doing so now. If _Lucien_ had told her, though, Jean would need to straighten things out.

"He keeps insisting that everything is fine," Mattie answered, frustration plain in her voice. "But I know it isn't. He...he's worried about you, Jean. I keep catching him looking at the studio like he means to march right in here and say something to you but he never does. I think he's afraid."

Mattie was afraid, too; Jean could see it in her eyes. When Mattie had come to check on her this evening the bowl at her bedside had been full of sick, and Jean had been curled into a tight little ball, shivering despite the warmth of the room. She knew what she looked like, how dreadful this must all seem to Mattie's eyes, Mattie who was a nurse, Mattie who, like Lucien, took illness as a personal insult, and fought with everything she had to defeat it. There would be no victory over the malady that had laid Jean low, but it seemed no one else in her house was willing to accept that fact.

The news Mattie had brought was troubling to Jean; she could almost picture it, Lucien staring longingly at the doors that separated Jean's domain from the rest of the house, wanting to speak to her and yet holding himself back, for he had been told in no uncertain terms not to press his case. What more could he say to her that had not been said already? What good would it do them, anyway? Jean was glad he had not found the courage to visit her; the sight of his beseeching eyes would break her heart, she was certain of it.

"It will be all right, Mattie," Jean said, although she knew it wouldn't be, not really. "You two have nothing to worry about. Now. you tell me all about Edie's wedding, I want to hear everything."

* * *

"You gonna eat that, or are you just planning to sit there and stare at it all night?"

At the unexpected sound of Matthew's voice Lucien jumped in his chair, and very nearly spilled his teacup all down his waistcoat. As it was he was able to catch himself at the last moment, and took a steadying breath before he answered.

"It's not for me," he said.

 _It_ was a brown paper parcel from the bakery, two pain au chocolats, purchased for Jean, who had hardly eaten at all in the last two days. When she had just fallen ill, when they were still dancing awkwardly around one another, trying to determine where they stood, he had purchased the pastries for her often, and she had eaten them, even when she could stomach nothing else. He had hoped she'd eat them now, too, but he had just been seized by the terrible fear that she would not accept them at all, that she would think the gesture too familiar, would take it as a sign that Lucien was trying to revive some of their previous closeness despite the way she had so completely rejected him. The last thing he wanted to do was upset her, but he was worried, terribly worried, about how rapidly her condition seemed to be deteriorating, and he could think of nothing else to do that might help ease her suffering.

Matthew stared at him for a moment, curiosity in his gaze before he sighed and settled himself behind his desk.

"You going to tell me what's going on?" Matthew asked, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest.

"I'm having a cup of tea and reviewing the autopsy report. Surely that's not a crime."

"Blake, you wrote that bloody report, and everybody else has gone home for dinner. What's this really about?"

The truth was that Lucien simply did not want to go home. He did not want to sit at the table with Mattie, eating the leftovers of whatever the church ladies had brought while they made strained attempts at conversation and tried not to stare at the empty chair where Jean should have been. He did not want to see the studio doors closed, when for so many weeks they had been left open, a silent invitation that had since been revoked. He did not want to lie down in his bed alone, and curse himself for having been a fool, for having pushed Jean when she needed patience, and ruining everything between them in the process. He did not want to wake in the morning and lie there wondering whether Jean would still be breathing when Mattie went to deliver her morning tea.

"Really, Matthew, everything is-"

"How is Jean? Really?"

Lucien stared at him for a moment, aghast and miserable. That was the question everybody asked him, these days; news of Jean's illness had spread through town like wildfire, and everywhere he went people asked after her, some of them genuinely concerned about her well-being and some of them just eager for gossip. The baker had even slipped an extra pastry into Lucien's parcel, knowing full well who that treat was meant for and trying in his own way to extend his good wishes. It was not courtesy or curiosity that compelled Matthew to ask such a question just now, however, and Lucien knew it; Matthew had seen to the root of Lucien's problems - and the reason for his unwillingness to leave the station - at once.

"Not well," Lucien confessed at last. Usually when people asked after Jean he lied through his teeth, said that while chemotherapy was never easy she was responding to the treatment and he was confident in her eventual recovery. Matthew deserved better than that from him, Lucien thought; Matthew deserved the truth. "She can't get out of bed, and she's hardly eating. I'm beginning to wonder if she might be better off in hospital after all. I'm beginning to think I've made a right mess of things."

"You did the best you could with what you had," Matthew said calmly. "Jean would have been bloody miserable in hospital, and you know it. You've made her as comfortable as you could and you've given her the best possible care. What I want to know is why you're here, and not home looking after her."

"I…" Lucien started to protest, but the words wouldn't come. On the one hand, he rather agreed with Matthew; there was no place he wanted to be more than at home, at Jean's side, helping her through her current distress. But…

"She doesn't want me there."

"Like hell she doesn't."

"Matthew-"

"You're scared, Lucien. No sense lying about it, I can see it on your face. How do you think she feels?"

Matthew's mother had died of cancer, Lucien recalled. His father had been a gambler with a heavy hand, prone to drink and prone to lashing out when the cards weren't in his favor. His mother had been a sweet woman, but she'd been sick, too, and hadn't been able to keep the old man in check. Maybe Matthew wasn't a doctor, but he knew a thing or two about illness, and a thing or two about fear. In his heart Lucien knew Matthew was right; however terrified Lucien might have been at the thought of losing Jean, surely she was more frightened still. His hiding out here like a coward would do her no good, but he feared the sight of his face wouldn't help her, either.

"You spend too long in this job, you learn a thing or two about how people react to fear. Fight or flight, Lucien. Some of them lash out, try to beat whatever's scaring them with their fists or shout at it until it goes away. Some of them just run away from it. Either way, you lose. The only way to beat fear is to face it. You have to stop mindlessly reacting, and act with purpose."

"Do you know, Matthew, if this law enforcement business doesn't work out you may have a future in psychiatry," Lucien said dryly.

"Go home, Blake," Matthew answered.

"Yes, sir," Lucien said. Perhaps there was a grain of truth to what Matthew had told him; perhaps Jean was only, in her own way, running away from her fears, and perhaps Lucien was doing the same. Perhaps they ought to face them, together. He left his teacup on the edge of Matthew's desk just to antagonize him, and snatched up his parcel before making his way out into the evening.

It would be cruel, he thought as he drove, to try once more to tell Jean of his feelings, to try to kiss her, touch her, when she had called a halt to such intimacies between them. But she was still his patient, and it was still his duty to care for her, and perhaps if he did in time she would come to see that his devotion would not wax and wane with her illness. Perhaps they could be friends, at least; that would please him, very much.

When he arrived home he found Mattie nowhere in sight, though there was a plate set out on the table for him, covered with a dishcloth. He left it where it was and went straight to the studio, still clutching the parcel of pastries in his hands. Shaking ever so slightly from nerves he knocked upon the doors, but hearing no answer he slowly slid them open, and stepped inside.

The fire had burned down to embers, but one of the lamps by the bed was still burning brightly. He made his way there, and found Jean fast asleep, curled on her side. There was an undrunk cup of tea on the table, and a plate of cold toast and biscuits; she'd still not eaten. Lucien frowned for a moment, taking in the sight of her, pale and small beneath a mountain of blankets. _Christ,_ what an almighty mess this was, but she was still, beautiful. Always beautiful, was Jean, no matter how dire the circumstances had grown, and she was still breathing, deep and even as she slept.

As quietly as he could Lucien set his parcel down on the table, and gathered up the old dishes before switching off the lamp. Jean would sleep easier in darkness, and perhaps come morning she'd be feeling well enough to eat the present he had brought for her.

 _I'll try again tomorrow,_ he told himself as he picked his way carefully out of the studio in the dark. It was all that he could do. _Try._


	43. Chapter 43

_25 June 1959_

When Jean woke on Thursday morning there was a fresh cup of tea courtesy of Mattie sitting on the sidetable, which was in itself not unusual; of late it was Mattie, and not Lucien, who brought Jean her morning tea, checked her pulse and confirmed that she was, in fact, still breathing before heading out to face the day. What _was_ unusual, however, was the small brown paper parcel lying next to the teacup. Jean felt weak today, weaker than she ever had so far - _that'll be the anemia,_ she thought, watching her hands shake as she reached for the parcel - but that small package intrigued her, roused her enough to open it and see what lay inside. Even before she pulled the paper back she had her suspicions, and they were proved right in a moment, for there beneath the paper lay two pain au chocolats. She smiled sadly as she saw them, for though her stomach churned too miserably to contemplate eating them now she knew where they had come from, and for what purpose they'd been laid there beside her bed. It was Lucien's doing; a peace offering of sorts, she thought, a gift intended to ease the tension between them. Already he had purchased this particular treat for her several times, had heard her comment on her preferences and tucked that knowledge away deep within his heart. It was, she thought, his attempt at demonstrating the depth of his affections for her, reminding her that he valued her enough to listen when she spoke, and yet he had delivered his gift while she was sleeping, had not roused her or sought to make a scene. He had done it in the kindest way he could manage.

She wanted to love him for it. Somewhere deep within her heart she knew she already did, love him; how could she not? Handsome and kind, gentle and clever, he was quite the most wonderful - and exasperating - man she'd ever known. Any woman would fall in love with such a man, she thought, a man who treated her so tenderly, who gave so much of himself to her. Yet her love was tinged with sorrow, for she knew it was not to be; she was shivering and weary, her body too weak to carry her from the bed, and even as she lay back amongst her comfortable pillows, staring at the pastries lying unwrapped on her little table, she was struggling to catch her breath, a hacking cough tickling its way up the back of her throat. The end was near, she thought; no one could survive such an ordeal. She had done her best, and _Lucien_ had done his best, and all that was left now, she thought, was for her to leave him. It would be cruel to entertain a dalliance now, when the moment of her departure seemed to draw ever closer; he would be better off in the end, she thought, if he could put thoughts of this love aside. It would go easier for him.

But, _oh,_ how she wished it were not so. Bitter tears stung her eyes but she did her best to fight them back; she did not have breath enough for weeping. If only things had been different; if they had not found the cancer, she could have carried on living her life, and her death might have been a swift one, rather than this lingering hell. If the cancer had not existed at all, perhaps she might have bumped into Lucien at the shops, or come round to feed him, worried that he wasn't managing well on his own, and maybe they would have fallen into love in the warmth of a gentle sun, far from this towering grief. _If...if...if..._ how she was growing to hate that word.

Fiercely she scrubbed the tears from her cheeks, and reached for the pastry, tore a corner off the closest one and nibbled on it with a heart full of sorrow. It just wasn't _fair,_ but then so little in life was fair. It wasn't fair that Christopher had been taken from her, that Jack had turned out so belligerent, that young Christopher was so far from her side, that she had met Lucien too late. Perhaps it was petulant, to bemoan the hand life had dealt her; there had been moments of beauty, and love, memories she treasured in her heart. It had not all been bad, she reminded herself. And she would do what she could to reach her end without burdening those around her unduly.

Even that small bite of pastry was more than she could bear and she rolled to the side, retching into the bowl she kept on the floor for just such an emergency, and gasped for breath while her stomach heaved, praying for mercy.

* * *

At the appointed hour Lucien gathered his courage and his instruments from the surgery, and dragged the lot of it across the house to the studio. Jean had not emerged today, but he had not expected her to; she'd been having a rough go of it lately, and his ill-timed declaration of devotion had made her more reticent than ever to be alone with him. He'd looked in on her in the morning and found her sleeping, the pain au chocolats unwrapped and uneaten by her bed. She had taken a bite, however, a small one, and he had comforted himself with the knowledge that she had not rejected his gift. Perhaps, he told himself, there was hope for him yet.

"Doctor calling," he announced himself with a false sense of cheeriness, stumbling through the studio doors as he juggled the IV stand and Jean's medication. Jean did not answer him, but as he approached her bed he found her leaning back against her pillows, watching him with a sad sort of smile on her face. She looked pale today - though she always did - and the dark circles beneath her eyes, the vibrant blue of her kerchief against her bare scalp, tugged at his heartstrings.

"And how is the patient feeling today?" he asked her as he came to a stop, looking down on her with a growing sense of dread. He did not like the way her chest was heaving, and when she spoke his heart sank to hear her breath rattling through her throat, as though she were already leaving him behind.

"Perfectly wretched," she confessed. Lucien stared at her in alarm; even on her worst days Jean continued to insist that she was doing _quite well, thank you._ Jean was always so defensive about her condition, so reluctant to admit to any unpleasantness, but now she was not trying to hide from him. If she no longer had the strength to keep up her feigned cheerfulness, circumstances must be very dire indeed.

His suspicions were proved right in a moment, for in the next breath Jean began to cough, a terrible, hacking sound that left him terrified. He abandoned the supplies at the end of Jean's bed and rushed to her, wasted no time on pleasantries as he set himself down beside her and wrapped one strong arm around her back, hauling her upright and holding her against him while she coughed. If she was struggling to breathe reclining as she had been would only put more pressure on her lungs, would only make it harder for her, and so he hoped that leaning her forward, against him, would ease her pain somewhat. It was clearly taking every ounce of her strength just to clear her throat; her body would not hold itself up, and so Lucien did that for her, held her tight to his side while her cheek brushed his shoulder, her body trembling against the solidness of him.

The fit passed in a heartbeat, but Lucien did not release his hold on her, and Jean made no move to leave his embrace. She only sagged against him, her head resting against his chest, her hands lying limp atop the blankets.

"It's all right," he told her. It wasn't all right, not really; his heart was screaming in his chest, terror slicing through his every nerve. Coughing was not a side effect of the chemotherapy, but the medication did make one more susceptible to infections. It was winter now and influenza was tearing through Ballarat. He and Mattie had seen their fair share of patients battling the disease in recent days, and though they had both been scrupulous in their dedication to the hygiene required by their professions still he worried that perhaps they might have brought something back to her. If Jean had fallen ill because of some laxity on his part, if it was the flu, and not the medication, that finally spelled the end of her, he'd never forgive himself. It would be the death of him, as surely as it was hers.

"It's all right," he said again, reaching for her with his free hand. Gently he pressed his palm to her forehead, and felt her skin burning beneath his own. Hot to the touch and yet shivering from cold, coughing terribly, struggling to breathe; Jean had most certainly come down with _something,_ and in her current condition, that was an ill omen indeed.

"It isn't," Jean whispered, her voice choked and ragged. He could hear her tears, though he could not see them. "I can't...I can't go on like this, Lucien."

He very nearly began to weep himself. For months now her care, her comfort, had been his primary concern, the moments he spent alone with her the highlight of his day, her brilliant smile the only thing that got him out of bed in the morning, but she was fading fast, despite his best efforts. Perhaps not despite them; perhaps _because_ of them. It was his choices, his deeds, that had led them here, to this moment where Jean was miserable and frightened and gasping for air, and guilt ate at him even through his fear.

"You won't have to," he answered fiercely. "I will set this right, Jean. I swear it."

"There's nothing you can do," she told him, and then she began to cough again. Still he held her tight to him, supporting her in the only way he could; _Christ,_ it seemed he was destined only to hold her when she was suffering, and he cursed cruel fate, for he would have given anything to wrap his arms around her in joy, instead.

"Tell Christopher," Jean gasped between straining breaths, "tell him that I love him. Love them both. My boys."

 _No,_ he wanted to say. _No, you'll tell them yourself when this storm has passed._ And yet deep within his heart he feared that she was right. Perhaps the time had come to say goodbye.

"No," he said, as much to himself as to her. _No,_ he would not give up on her yet. Influenza could be treated, and cancer could be treated, and he would drag her from the jaws of death with the strength of his own two hands, would pummel the beasts that assailed her and free them both from this impending grief. "You'll be-"

Jean nearly tumbled from his grip as her coughing turned to retching, and he went with her, held her steady as she emptied the meager contents of her stomach into the bowl beside her bed. He watched, helpless, as her body surged and struggled, but in that bowl he saw the pink tinge of blood, and was stirred into action in a moment. Struggling to breathe, retching up blood; there was nothing he could do for her here, but aid could be found for her elsewhere. The man Lucien Blake had become was forged in the fires of war, and he had performed surgery beneath a hail of bullets, had amputated fingers and treated malaria in a prisoner of war camp, and there lived within his heart still the soul of a soldier who could not, would not ever, leave a man behind. Jean could be saved; he _would_ save her.

"Right," he said, and without a moment's pause he rose to his feet, and looped his arms around her easily. One arm beneath her two bent knees, one arm round her back, he lifted her bodily from the bed, and she came with him compliant as a child, her arms draped limply round his neck while she pressed her face hard to his shoulder. She had always been a small woman, but illness had made her smaller still, and his arms were strong, and made to hold her. His steps were sure and certain as he carried her from her bedroom, he in his neat blue suit, she wearing nothing more than a faded pink nightgown. He walked, resolute, chin stuck out as though defying death itself to stop him, and he felt her fingers feebly catch against his jacket, clinging to him.

"Don't let me go," Jean whispered. Her voice was thin, and if he could have seen her face he would have found her eyes closed, the effort of keeping them open more than she could bear.

"Never," he swore through gritted teeth. "Never, my darling."

She could love him, she could hate him, she could pity him; it did not matter to him, in that moment, whether his feelings for her were returned, or ever could be. It did not matter what the future held in store for him, for them together; the only thing that mattered, that would ever matter to him, was that she be around to see that future for herself. She was everything to him, the whole world sheltered in his arms, and he would not fail her now.


	44. Chapter 44

_25 June 1959_

The tires squealed as Lucien rounded the corner in front of the hospital, the car skidding to a halt beside the curb. In the space of a heartbeat he was out from behind the wheel, racing to the back of the car, where Jean lay stretched across the seat, her head resting against the window. Her eyes fluttered open along with the door, but as Lucien's hands reached for her they closed again. No words came from her, nor did any more of those hideous, wracking coughs, but her breath rattled unpleasantly in her throat and her chest heaved with the effort of it, and her skin was still hot to the touch. Getting her out of the car was a damn sight trickier than getting her in had been, but Lucien managed it just the same, and in a moment he was turning, marching smartly towards the hospital with his arms full of Jean.

As he went he did not spare a moment to think of appearances, to wonder how people might talk when word of this got out. Doctor Blake, with a wild look in his eyes, running for the hospital doors cradling his barely-dressed and barely-conscious housekeeper in his arms in the broad light of day; for the passersby who managed to catch a glimpse of him it was quite the strangest thing they'd seen all day - and quite the juiciest piece of gossip. Lucien had no time for such concerns; Jean was in a bad way, and her safety, her care, was his only priority. He stormed up the few short steps, fully prepared to kick the door open as he reached it, but he was saved by the timely arrival of a nurse. The poor girl had no sooner swung the door open, intent on walking out of it, than she came face-to-face with Lucien, with his grim expression and his terrible burden, and she promptly shrieked and leapt out of the way.

Lucien bulled right past the startled nurse, making a beeline for the counter where the ladies processed incoming patients. A few folks were milling about, none of them in particularly bad shape - not that Lucien took the time to examine his surroundings overmuch. He began shouting, instead.

"A little help, please!" he barked, and what few people there were gathered in that place parted before him like water. A helpful nurse, discerning at once the nature of his predicament, rushed off to fetch a gurney for his patient while another came out from behind the counter, intent on calming him. She was a brave one; he looked quite mad.

"Doctor Blake?" the nurse said. "Is everything all right?"

Lucien stared at her, made incredulous by the inanity of such a question. "No," he answered, still cradling Jean close. "It bloody well isn't. I need a bloody doctor."

Of course he _was_ a bloody doctor, but Jean needed more help than he could give her at home. More hands, more medications, a fighting chance at beating the ailment that had laid her so low.

"I say, Blake," Geoffrey Nicholson's voice had never been so welcome as it was in that moment, booming out from behind Lucien's shoulder. "What's all this?"

Nicholson reached him at roughly the same time the first nurse returned with a gurney, and Nicholson stood to one side of it, helping Lucien as he carefully eased Jean down, his hand gently cradling her head while they settled her atop it.

"She has a fever," Lucien said. He was reluctant to pull away from her entirely, the weight of her delicate head cradled in his palm the only thing keeping him sane, and focused. "She's struggling to breathe, and she has a terrible cough. There was blood in her vomit."

"We'll take her through here," Nicholson said; with one hand he gestured down the corridor, and with the other he drew the attention of the nurses, beckoned them to come and assist. "The flu's going round. There are any number of possible causes for blood in her vomit, and we'll want to conduct a thorough examination."

With the help of the nurses Nicholson began to wheel Jean down the corridor, and Lucien moved with them, his hand still caught beneath her head.

"I'm sorry, Blake," Nicholson said as they went. "I know you're her physician, but given your personal involvement…"

He meant to bar Lucien from the examination room. Meant to force him to linger outside, as if he were no more than a layman, as if he were a worried husband, and not Jean's own doctor. For a moment Lucien considered voicing a protest, insisting on being by Jean's side the whole time, but his head knew what his heart did not; he _was_ too involved, and his presence during the examination would be more hindrance than help. His worry for her might well cloud his judgment, make him combative and difficult, and what Jean needed now, more than ever, was a calm, professional team, and all the resources at their disposal.

"I'll just wait out here, shall I?" he said weakly as they reached the examination room. Nicholson offered him a sad smile, but then he was pushing the gurney through the door, and the nurses were jostling Lucien out of the way, and Jean slipped slowly from his grip. The door swung shut, blocking her from view, trapping Lucien in a prison of ignorance and worry. It was going to be a very long afternoon.

* * *

It was full dark, when Jean's eyes finally fluttered open. For a moment she lay very still, trying to get her bearings, trying to determine where she was, and what had become of her. She was lying in a hospital bed, in a small room with no window. A bit of light filtered in from behind the door, but it was the muted light of the hospital in the evening, and no voices echoed out from the corridor. The last thing she could recall was that Lucien had come to her bedroom at one o'clock for their usual appointment. What had become of the intervening hours? She closed her eyes, and tried to cast her memory back, attempting to dredge up some clue as to how she'd come to be in hospital, with a multitude of little tubes running from the crook of her poor abused elbow to the IV stand by the bed.

Lucien had come to her, she reminded herself. What next? She had begun to cough, and he had held her close, and the nearness of him, this man she longed for so desperately and yet feared she could never have, had torn at her heart, and left her weeping. The weeping turned to retching, she recalled, but she'd grown so short of breath, so dreadfully weak, that the image of her room and Lucien in it had grown dark. Faintly she recalled the warmth of him against her, and wished with all her heart he could have held her under any other circumstances. There had been a moment, then, when she had been certain her lungs were failing, that the end was drawing near for her, that poor Lucien would have to bear witness to her final moments, and she nearly began to weep again now, thinking how terrible it would be to put him through such an ordeal, when he had tried so hard and suffered so much. Evidently she was not dead; she ached down to her very bones and her throat was raw, but she could breathe a little easier, now, and her stomach was not churning as it had been before. Whatever medications the hospital had given her, they were clearly working wonders; she did not feel well, not at all, but she did not feel close to death, either, and she gave thanks for small mercies.

Satisfied with what little she could recall - that she had been dreadfully unwell, that Lucien must have brought her to the hospital - she sighed and once more opened her eyes, turned her head to look at the table beside her bed in hopes that she might find a glass of water there. She did, in fact, find a glass and a tall pitcher of cool clear water, but there was something far more compelling by the side of her bed, and she did not reach for the water at all.

It was _Lucien,_ fast asleep in an uncomfortable-looking chair at her bedside. His long legs were stretched out in front of him and his head lolled back against the chair, his eyes closed, his breathing deep and even. The hospital was fastidious about visiting hours, and Jean was certain it was far too late for visitors to be permitted, and yet there he was, Lucien, here and watching over her. He must have put up quite a fight, she thought, must have called in a favor with some of his doctor friends, in order to be granted such a boon, and the sight of him stirred something deep within her heart.

He could far more easily have gone home. Knowing that she was in safe hands, that her condition was improving, lectured by the nurses about what was and wasn't proper behavior, the right thing, the simple thing, the obvious thing to do would have been for him to go _home,_ to have dinner, to sleep in his own bed and look in on her in the morning. And yet he had done no such thing; he had instead chosen to stay here, with her, to guard her sleep as if he meant to keep her safe from any further harm. As if he could not bear to be parted from her for a single moment.

Selfishly, she was glad he had stayed; more than glad. Her heart swelled at the sight of him, for after all the fear and pain of this day there was nothing she wanted more than to see him. Her Lucien, the lines of his dear, sweet face softened in sleep, here, with her. He had held her close, carried her from the very edge of death, she was certain, to this refuge, had with his strength and his determination saved her from calamity. If it was only pity or guilt that compelled him she was certain he would not still be here, and as she looked at him her memory flashed to a moment she'd nearly forgotten. His strong arms, holding her close, his strong legs, carrying the both of them out of the house, towards safety, his gentle voice, whispering _my darling._

As last Jean allowed herself to admit what she had always known, what he had shown her in every touch of his hand, in every little pastry he'd brought to her, in the gentle way he'd shaved her head, in the tender way he spoke to her. Lucien _loved_ her, and god help her, but she loved him. She loved him for his care, for his stubborn determination, for the boundless compassion of his heart. She loved his handsome face, and his strong hands, and his reckless pursuit of truth. She _loved_ him, every inch of him, down to the bones of him. Before now she had thought whatever tender feelings they nursed for one another would fade with time, but instead she found them only growing, the bonds they tied them together strengthening day by day. She recalled the warmth of his kiss, and her own bitter doubts, and how the tension that her rejection had caused between them had brought her grief, as much as it had done to him. Being without him was unthinkable to her, now.

Perhaps it would have been simpler to let him go. Perhaps he might have been happier, in the end, with a woman who was well, who could give to him everything he needed, everything he deserved. But he was not out with some other woman, was not even at home comfortable in his own bed; he was here, with _her_ , and she could not help but feel as if a veil had been lifted from her eyes. She had thought herself close to death, but he had saved her, and in so doing it seemed to Jean that he had given her a second chance. A chance to set things right, to fight for the future they could have, the future she knew they both longed for. She had urged him to turn his thoughts away from her but he had done no such thing, had only carried on, quietly devoted to her, and she would not, could meet such tender regard with further obstinance. He had made his choice, and he had chosen _her,_ and she wanted him too badly to turn away from him again.

One of his hands was resting on the bed by her side, as if even in sleep he could not stop himself from reaching for her, and her gaze drifted down to that hand. They had discussed it once, the details that might make a man or a woman attractive, and Jean had confessed that a man's hands were quite attractive indeed, had told Lucien that the story of a man's life was written on his hand. This hand of his was broad and strong, the fingers thick and yet dexterous enough for surgery, and the piano. His skin was tanned, marred here and there by small, silvery scars, memories of a thousand ancient hurts. That hand was strong enough to punch, to strangle, deft enough to cut, practiced at healing and wounding both, but he had used that hand to care for her, had smoothed that palm across the soft skin of her head and reminded her that a woman did not need hair to make her beautiful - that _she_ did not need it. That hand had held her, and brought her safe to this place. It was a hand she longed to take hold of, and never let go.

This moment of stillness, on this dark night, this brief respite from the bitterness and pain that had dogged her steps for moments, had changed Jean's heart indelibly. _I am on the road to Damascus,_ she thought. Paul had been journeying to arrest the followers of Christ when the voice of the Lord spoke from the heavens, and changed the course of his life forever. So, too, had Lucien's gentle care finally broken the levees of Jean's own heart, and allowed her love for him to flow freely at last. What lay in store for them at the end of this road she could not say, but she meant to venture forth into that unknown with Lucien by her side, his hand in hers. If he would have her, after all the pain she'd caused him. Given his presence by her bed, she rather thought he might.

And so she reached for him, at last, and let her hand cover his, her fingers curling round the breadth of that hand until she was holding him close.

"Thank you," she whispered. He had caught her when she stumbled, held her when her own strength failed, carried her through darkness to this moment of peace, and she would be grateful for every day of her life, however many of those she might be allowed, for the constancy of his love. With the warmth of his hand beneath her own and the comforting sound of his steady breathing filling her ears Jean closed her eyes, and drifted off to a gentler sleep than any she had known for quite some time.


	45. Chapter 45

_26 June 1959_

It was the soft sound of voices that woke Lucien the next morning - well, that and the screaming of his back, protesting at having been trapped in that dreadful chair for hours on end. The voices were more pleasant than the clamouring of his body, and so for a moment he remained still and silent, kept his eyes closed and his breathing steady, the better to hear what those voices had to say.

"Don't mind him," Jean said, very quietly. "He's had rather a hard time of it lately. He needs his rest."

"And so do you, Mrs. Beazley," a young lady - most likely a nurse - answered her gently. "You've had rather a hard time of it, too."

"Oh, I think the worst of it has passed," Jean answered, but though her words were punctuated by a brief, nasty sounding cough, Lucien rather thought she had the right of it. The worst of it must have passed, he thought, if she were awake and alert and speaking clearly. The worst of it must have passed, he thought, for she had strength enough to hold his hand, and her skin was warm and soft pressed against his own. A smile tugged at the corner of his lips, and threatened to give away his ruse entirely, but he could not hold it back. She was holding his hand! Of her own choosing, with no prodding from him, Jean had reached for him, was clinging to him, even now. Though she had voiced her protests, though she had turned away from his kiss, she was reaching for him now, and that one small gesture seemed monumental to him. Perhaps she had finally seen what he had been trying to show for her so long now, that he cared for her, and that his care would not wax and wane with her health, but would instead continue on, blooming in the light of her radiance.

There was a chance, of course, that Jean had only reached for him _because_ he had been sleeping, that she had only touched him when he knew nothing at all about it and intended to withdraw her affection the moment he was awake, intended to carry on her charade of rejection. That thought troubled him; he considered himself to be a persuasive sort of fellow, clever and quick to bring people round to his way of thinking, but Jean had so far defied all his attempts at convincing her of his ardor, and instead remained stubbornly committed to her conviction that there was no future for them together. Suppose she had not changed her mind? It was an obstacle he didn't quite know how to overcome, her belief that they would not make a good match.

"You are better this morning," the nurse agreed. "But you aren't out of the woods just yet. Lots of rest and lots of fluids, yes?"

"Yes," Jean agreed, and Lucien listened as the nurse bustled away, his eyes still closed and his heart racing. As soon as they were alone he meant to put on some show of waking up, meant to speak to Jean and see for himself what decision she had made where he was concerned - if, indeed, she had made any decision at all. It might prove to be a damn uncomfortable conversation, but it was one he knew they needed to have, and he was determined to let this all play out, to whatever end.

"I know you're awake," Jean said softly as the door closed behind the nurse, and Lucien's eyes flickered open ruefully. She was smiling, though, his Jean, smiling that beautiful smile that filled his heart with warmth. Someone had found a jumper for her somewhere, a heavy, lumpy thing he was certain did not belong to Jean, and her blue kerchief had been neatly rearranged to cover her bare head, and she lay propped up against a mountain of pillows, buried beneath an avalanche of blankets. She looked small, and warm, and cozy, and as beautiful as he had ever seen her, if only because she was smiling at him, and holding his hand, still.

"Are you feeling all right?" he asked her, his voice as low as hers had been. In a fit of daring he turned his hand over beneath hers, pressed their palms flat together and laced his fingers through her own while he sat up a little straighter in his chair. Jean did not balk, or pull her hand away; she blushed prettily, but let him hold her, and he took that as a positive sign indeed.

"Much better today," she admitted. "They've given me all sorts of medications, and I feel much more myself."

"Doctor Nicholson says you have the flu, and they'll want to keep you in here for a few days," Lucien told her. With medication they could moderate her fever and alleviate the worst of her cough, keep her comfortable and watch her every moment, but she was by no means saved; there was a chance, however small, that given the way the cancer treatments had weakened her immune system a simple case of the flu could turn to pneumonia, and if it did...well. Lucien pushed the thought aside, and determined not to mention it to Jean. She had enough to be worrying about, he thought, and emotions could play havoc with a body's physical ecosystem. Better to keep her happy, he thought. He would do anything to make her happy.

"They told me," she said. "And you must promise me you won't stay here the whole time. You have much more important things to do than worry over me. In fact, I don't think you should be here now. Suppose you catch it, too?" Her brow furrowed with worry as that thought occurred to her, and Lucien loved her for it, her selfless practicality, even in the face of the trials before her.

"Too late for that now," he told her cheerfully. "I've been exposed to you already. I'll not take patients for the next few days, just in case, and I'll steer clear of the station. The last thing we need is for me to go and infect the whole bloody town."

"No, that wouldn't do at all," Jean agreed. That blush still stained her cheeks - though maybe that was just the fever, he reminded himself - and she cast her eyes down suddenly, her gaze landing on their intertwined hands. The furrow had not left her brow; something was on her mind, and whatever it was it was plainly making her uncomfortable, but she couldn't quite seem to find the words to express the concerns of her heart. That didn't trouble Lucien so very much; he had words enough for both of them.

"Jean," he said very softly, leaning towards her and watching her face intently. "I wanted to say-"

"No," she cut him off, and his heart sank for a moment, thinking she meant to spurn him yet again. It was funny, really, the power she held over him; he lived and died by the play of emotions upon her face, his heart held fast in her two small hands whether she wanted it or not. "I have something to say, if you don't mind."

"Not at all," he said, trying to mask the misery in his voice. He took an unsteady breath, preparing himself to once more hear her tell him that what he felt was fear, and not love. Over the course of his life he had tasted them both, and he knew very well how to tell one from the other, but he did not know how to convince her of that fact if his action so far had not been sufficient.

"I want to apologize," she said, and he looked up at her sharply, relief rushing into fill the void left by bitter disappointment. "I didn't...I don't...you weren't the one who was afraid, Lucien. I was afraid. I _am_ afraid. I feel perfectly fine at the moment but yesterday I was so wretched I was certain I was going to die. I _might_ die. Tomorrow, or a week from now. Don't stop me, please," she added sharply when he opened his mouth to protest. "And I thought - I do think - it would be cruel of me to...to let you grow too attached, as it were. Lucien, you have lost so much already and I could not bear to be the cause of more suffering in your life."

"Oh, Jean," he sighed. With his left hand he still held her tight, and with his right he reached up and scrubbed his palm across his face, his heart aching. It was not lack of affection, then, that caused her to pull away from him; she had been trying, in her own way, to be noble, to spare him further grief. What she did not seem to realize was how much grief she had caused him already, was that even if she never accepted him, never loved him, he would mourn her loss with every fiber of his being, every day for the rest of his life. Already she had taken up residence within the shattered ruins of his heart, and nothing, not even death itself, would be sufficient to dislodge her.

"But then I came round and saw you sleeping there," she continued. "And I realized...I realized I wanted to see your face. I wanted you with me. More than anyone else in the world, I wanted you beside me. I still think this is madness. I still think you would be better off with Mrs. McDonald and I'll not fault you if you agree. But I can't pretend as if...I have no idea how much time I have left but I don't intend to spend it without you."

It was quite the speech; Jean did not often expound upon her feelings, and certainly not at such length. Her eyes shone as she spoke - though she did not dare look at him - and he could feel her hand trembling, held tight within his own, and he knew then that every word she'd said was true. Finally, after so many months of hiding behind ironclad defenses Lucien had no hope of tearing down, Jean had shown him her heart, and it very nearly moved him to tears, for every word she'd said echoed every hope he carried within his own chest. It was Jean's face he wanted to see, more than any other in all the world, Jean's hand he longed to hold. However long she might have left - and he prayed that it would be long indeed, that all his efforts and all the work of the good people at the hospital would keep her with him for a good many years yet - he wanted to spend that time with her.

"Look at me, Jean," he breathed, and when she did he lifted their combined hands, and pressed a kiss against her skin. "I promise you, I will not let you go."

 _Don't let me go,_ she'd whispered as he carried her out to the car, rushing towards her salvation. Those words had echoed in his mind ever since. Those pleading words, asking him not to drop her, not to let her die, not to let her live on without his love. And he had sworn then, as he swore now, to never, ever let her go.

A glaze of tears made her eyes sparkle like diamonds, and he smiled as she pulled their hands in close to her chest, holding him tight to her.

"I feel a bit foolish," she confessed. "You can hardly court your housekeeper, Lucien. And I can hardly...I can't be what you need. Not now, not like this."

" _You_ are what I need," he assured her at once. "I don't know what you're expecting, but I do know what I would like. I would like to sit with you, and speak to you, and share meals with you, as we have always done. But I would like to kiss you, Jean." He wanted to do rather a lot more than that; he wanted to dance her round the parlor, and take her on the grand adventures she deserved, wanted to make love to her beneath the canopy of golden stars sparkling on the ceiling of the studio, wanted to walk down the pavement holding her hand, wanted to make her his wife. He wanted all of those things, and more besides, but before they could have any of that they must first have _this,_ quiet, honest conversation and tender care while her body recovered. _One day,_ he promised himself. _One day she will be well, and we will have all of that and more._

"I would like that, too," she told him shyly, and so he smiled and heaved himself out of the chair. Slowly he bent over her, his free hand reaching for her face, cradling her cheek in his palm while her own hand wrapped around his wrist, held him close to her. Jean lifted her chin and met him halfway, and in the next breath his lips brushed hers, softly. He pulled back after a moment and found her smiling at him, and so he leaned in, and kissed her again.


	46. Chapter 46

_1 July 1959_

Nearly a week Jean had been in hospital, now. Nearly a week of dreadful boredom, of pleasant, far too brief visits from Lucien, a week of being poked and prodded by nurses. The doctors had agreed amongst themselves that Jean would not receive her chemotherapy treatments until the flu had run its course, but this decision had left an anxiety in Lucien's eyes Jean cared for not at all. Whatever doubts he might harbor he did not share them with her; he spoke to her with a mouthful of promises, and she could not find it in her heart to mistrust him, now that she had finally allowed herself to be guided by her fondness for him, not to hide from him. His love had saved her life, and she would put her faith in that love, however doomed it might be.

Doctor Nicholson suggested to her that if she woke on Thursday morning without a fever she might, at last, be permitted to return home. Jean prayed for it, alone in her little room, staring at a bland tray of hospital supper. She prayed for strength, and health enough to see her once more installed in her beautiful suite of rooms, to see her once more _home,_ where she belonged. When Lucien first announced that he had - without her knowledge, let alone her consent - moved all of her belongings to the studio she had been more than a little cross with him. Over time, however, he had won her round to his way of thinking, and she had grown to love the studio. _Her_ studio, now, filled with her things, filled with her memories, memories of Lucien's gentle hands on her skin by the fire, memories of Lucien's strong arms lifting her from the bed. The practicality of the arrangement had merit, as well; having her own private bathroom had been a godsend through the miserable days of her illness, and the little sofa in front of the fireplace had very nearly become her favorite place in the whole house.

Very nearly, but not quite, for she still loved the sunroom best. It had been weeks now since she'd set foot in that place, since she'd been strong enough to cross the distance from her bed to her flowers. In fact, she had been feeling so wretched she had made no arrangement for the care of her flowers at all. That thought troubled her; what on earth had become of them, in her absence? Had anyone in the house thought to care for them at all?

 _I shall have to speak to Lucien,_ she told herself. He'd popped by in the afternoon to sit with her awhile, which she had enjoyed very much, but she'd told him in no uncertain terms that he must go home and see that Mattie had a proper supper to eat, even if it was only fish and chips. It was his house, after all, and while Jean was not in residence she felt the care and keeping of the house and its occupants must fall to him. It had been the right decision, sending him away, but at the moment she almost wished she hadn't. The head nurse had laid down the law with Lucien, insisted that personal physician or not Mrs. Beazley needed her rest, and he was only to sit with her during regular visiting hours. Jean's decision to send him home to Mattie meant she'd not see him again until the following morning, and then only if Matthew Lawson didn't have need of him. It had just gone six, and with the exception of the pleasant nurse who would come clear away her supper and check her temperature before bed, Jean would be all alone until morning.

It was a dreadful prospect. Jean was not accustomed to spending quite so much time on her own; even when she could hardly leave her bed Mattie and Lucien would both come and sit with her, and their voices would ring through the house, and Jean would nestle amongst her pillows, content in the knowledge that she was not alone. Now, though, she was utterly cut off from the rest of the world, and the hospital was cold, and lonesome. None of her things were here, and there was no wireless to occupy her, no Lucien banging on the piano, no gentle banter while they all watched _Game of Champions_ together. She was not entirely without occupation - Lucien had brought her knitting, and a few books for her to read - but those diversions held little interest for her. She wanted to be _home._

 _And you will be,_ she reminded herself sternly. _You'll go home tomorrow. You can last one more night._

* * *

"Oh, Lucien, I don't think I can face another supper of fish and chips," Mattie said morosely as he came sauntering in the kitchen, their newspaper-wrapped dinner bundled up beneath his arm.

"I promise I'll go to the greengrocer tomorrow," he told her earnestly, but Mattie just frowned, for he'd said precisely the same thing to her the previous evening, and yet had once again turned up with a greasy supper, and not a vegetable in sight.

Shopping and cooking were tasks with which neither Lucien nor Mattie were much accustomed; oh, they could manage all right when Jean sent them out with a list, which she had taken to doing of late, but left to their own devices they were both a bit muddled. _We're spoiled, is what we are,_ he thought as he began unwrapping their supper. Jean had taken such excellent care of them all for so very long that they had grown helpless in her absence. The church ladies had come by at the weekend, left their casseroles and whisked away the dirty laundry, but the food they'd brought had run out. There hadn't been that much to begin with, not like it had been in the early days of Jean's illness. Perhaps the ladies thought it was high time Lucien learned to fend for himself. Perhaps they were right.

"Is there vinegar, at least?" Mattie asked, settling into her usual chair with a sigh of resignation. Lucien opened his mouth to answer, to tell her that they did not have to forgo all their usual creature comforts while Jean was in hospital, but as he did there came a knock upon the door. Mattie frowned up at him expectantly, and so Lucien turned away from the table and rushed off to see who had come knocking.

"Matthew!" he cried as he flung open the door and found the Superintendent standing on the other side of it with a picnic hamper in his hands. "This is a surprise."

"I thought somebody ought to make sure you're not subsisting on whiskey," he said. "Here." Without preamble he thrust the hamper into Lucien's arms, and then stuffed his hands in his pockets, as if he did not quite know what to do with himself now that his charitable gesture had been received.

"Come in, Matthew, please," Lucien said, taking a step back and jerking his head toward the kitchen. "There's plenty to go around."

"That's kind of you, Lucien, thank you."

Lucien neatly closed the door behind him, and then the pair of them set off for the kitchen together, Lucien grinning all the while. He couldn't help it; there was something dreadfully lovely about having friends, about having the people he cared for gathered beneath one roof. Jean loved him, and she would come home to him tomorrow, and in the meantime he would be surrounded with companionship and comfort and whatever food Matthew had rustled up for them. It seemed to him to be a wonderful way to spend an evening, and it could only have been improved by Jean's presence.

"How is she getting on?" Matthew asked as they went. There was no need to specify which _she_ he meant; it could only have been Jean.

"Much improved," Lucien told him honestly. "She should be back home tomorrow." _If the fever is truly gone, if they think she's strong enough, if they trust me enough to release her into my care, and don't decide to keep her in there for good._ Though the flu had mostly run its course and Jean was faring much better the truth was she was dreadfully weak, and living under the same roof as a doctor's surgery, with Mattie and Lucien tending to sick patients every day, presented risks that might be intolerable, given the havoc the chemotherapy had wrought on her immune system. Lucien wanted her _home,_ more than anything, but there might have been wisdom in keeping her in hospital. His head might agree with the other doctors' assessments; his heart, however, could not bear the thought of his continued separation from Jean. She belonged _here_ , with him, and he ached for her.

"Mattie, Superintendent Lawson has come to your rescue," Lucien declared as they stepped into the kitchen together.

"Thought you lot could do with a vegetable or two," Matthew said gruffly.

"God bless you, Superintendent," Mattie answered, gleefully pushing her plate of fish and chips away and reaching into the hamper Lucien had laid before her.

"Did you make all this yourself?" Lucien asked curiously, watching as Mattie pulled out containers of potatoes and corn and something green he couldn't yet identify and a bit of roast chicken.

"We don't all live in grand houses with saints like Jean to look after us," Matthew told him, but there was a twinkle in his eye that let Lucien know he was only teasing. "The rest of us had to learn to fend for ourselves."

"And I'm glad you did, Matthew. Come on, then. Have a seat. I'll get you a drink."

The evening passed quite pleasantly, with cheery conversation and a remarkably lovely supper made by Matthew's own two hands, and the fish and chips was left to grow cold, untouched as the occupants of the house reached gleefully for more wholesome sustenance. It was, on the whole, one of the finer meals Lucien had enjoyed for quite some time, but as he sat, listening to Mattie and Matthew both complaining good-naturedly about Danny's latest antics, he felt a pang of sorrow in his heart, thinking that Jean was not there to witness it. She would have laughed along with them, and praised Matthew's cooking, and made the whole room brighter by her very presence. It simply wasn't fair, he thought, that Jean, who was the best of them, was left alone, facing discomfort and isolation and pain without the ones who loved her there to comfort her when she needed it most.

An idea came to him, as Mattie rose from the table and began to clear the dishes away, as Matthew leaned back in his chair, whiskey glass in hand and a contended look upon his face. The nurses were under strict orders not to let him into Jean's room after hours, but this late in the evening they were short staffed, and a few of them were firmly on his side, thought it sweet the way Doctor Blake doted on Mrs. Beazley. It would not be so very difficult, he told himself; he had been a spy in a former life, and had infiltrated places with much higher security than the local hospital boasted. Perhaps Jean didn't have to be alone tonight, after all.

* * *

Jean was half asleep when the door to her little room opened. The sound of it surprised her, for the nurses had already come to see that she had everything she needed for the night, and were not due back until the morning. Curious, then, she opened her eyes, and felt a wide, brilliant smile spill across her face as she found Lucien slipping through it, clutching a little bundle in his arms.

"Lucien!" she gasped, delighted. "You aren't supposed to be here."

It seemed necessary to chide him for so blatantly disobeying the rules of the hospital and the ultimatums of the nurses who were responsible for her care, but she was so overjoyed by the sight of him that her admonishment did not sound sincere in the least, and he grinned as he approached her, and pressed a shy kiss to her cheek.

"Better to ask forgiveness than permission, eh?" he said, and his expression was so very eager, and his heart was so very dear, that if Jean had only had strength enough to pull herself up she would have wrapped her arms around him and kissed him properly. As it was she could only smile at him, a smile as warm and soft as his own had been.

"We had a wonderful supper," Lucien told her as he dragged the little chair closer to her bedside and settled himself upon it. "Courtesy of Matthew Lawson, if you can believe that."

The mystery of the bundle he carried was made plain in a moment as he began to unpack it; it contained a thermos, two small travelling cups of the sort most often used for camping, and a small stack of biscuits, only partially damaged in transit.

"He's a good man," Jean told him. _And so are you,_ she thought.

"That he is," Lucien agreed. His hands were busy laying his wares out on the little table beside her bed, twisting the top off the thermos so he could pour its contents - tea, by the looks of it, and still hot - into the cups. "But as wonderful as it was, it was not as wonderful as it could be, because you were not there with us. We miss you terribly."

"I've missed you, too," Jean answered as she accepted the cup he offered her. "It's been dreadful being cooped up in here. Heaven only knows what's become of my begonias."

At that Lucien's expression grew sheepish, and Jean knew then that he had forgotten her flowers entirely. She could not fault him for it; she'd not asked him to look after them, and he had more important things to be getting on with. It would be difficult enough for him to manage the day to day business of the house and the surgery without her there to guide him, she could hardly expect him to go looking for extra chores for himself. And besides, he was hardly a gardening expert; his help might have only killed her plants more quickly. She was suddenly reminded of the incident with the bread, and hid her mirth behind her cup, not wanting him to ask what she found so amusing, not wanting to confess that it was his ineptitude that brought that rueful smile to her lips.

"You can see for yourself tomorrow," he promised her.

"If they'll let me go."

Lucien's face fell, and he picked absently at a biscuit. For a man past fifty, a man who had upon his arrival in Ballarat been brusque and waspish and successfully offended every single citizen he came into contact with - Jean included - he wore his heart on his sleeve, her Lucien. Every emotion, every thought, seemed to play out there, and Jean could read them all, now.

"I do feel much better," she hastened to add. "Surely-"

"Surely they will," Lucien agreed, but his heart was not in it. He doubted, then, doubted whether they'd let her go at all, or whether now they had her within their grasp the doctors would insist she remain in hospital for the remainder of her treatment. The thought was unbearable to her; a week away from home had been difficult enough. Further isolation might well drive her mad.

 _No use in worrying about it now,_ she told herself. Lucien had come all this way, snuck past the doctors and the nurses, just to sit with her, to bring her tea and biscuits, and she would not let her worries for the future spoil the sweetness of this moment.

"Now tell me," she said, holding her cup in one hand and reaching for Lucien with the other, catching his fingers in hers. "What did you get up to today?"


	47. Chapter 47

_2 July 1959_

"Honestly, Lucien, I'm fine," Jean said, but she was smiling as she spoke, as he wrapped his arm around her waist and drew her close to him for the short jaunt from his car to the front door.

"Humor me, please," he answered. If he had his way Lucien would have commandeered one of the wheelchairs from the hospital for Jean to use at home; she was dreadfully pale and terribly thin, and though her fever had broken and the worst of the coughing had passed he was still not confident she'd regained enough of her strength to go traipsing about. He would have carried her to the door if she'd let him, but he knew better than to ask; his Jean was always happiest standing on her own two feet.

How strange it was, he thought as they moved together towards the door, his hand settled comfortably on her hip, her overnight bag held loosely in his free hand, that he could think of her as _his,_ now, that she should welcome his touch, and not run from him. The terrible ordeal she'd suffered a week before seemed to have caused a dramatic shift in Jean's very soul; there was a peacefulness to her now that he could not recall having seen before, and she had accepted him, wholly and completely. He had not thought such a thing was possible, not without a great deal more effort on his part, and he hardly knew what to do with himself, now that their circumstances had changed so dramatically. Everything had changed, and yet nothing had; when they entered the house he would walk with her to her room, fetch a cup of tea and sit with her awhile, and there was nothing new about that. He loved her today, but he had loved her a week before; his love of her had not changed. She was still ill, and he was still her doctor. But she had opened her heart to him, at long last, and he would not squander such a precious gift.

"Let's get you settled, eh?" he said as they stepped through the door together.

Jean slipped away from him, perhaps recalling that Mattie was in the house and thinking a bit of distance would be for the good. She might have been right about that, but Lucien lamented the loss of her warmth beside him just the same.

"I've been in bed for days," Jean reminded him. "I'm in no hurry to lie down. I think I'd like to go and see my flowers."

Though Lucien wanted to protest Jean did not wait around to hear it; she stepped away from him, walking smoothly down the corridor, the soft swing of her hips nearly lulling Lucien into insensibility right there. How long had it been, he wondered, since last he'd had the chance to stand and watch her walk, to think how fine she looked in her sharp skirt, her pale blue blouse? For days before she'd taken a turn she had been relegated to her bed, and had been avoiding him besides. It seemed an age, since last she'd been up and about, properly dressed and walking through the corridors of their home with purpose. Lucien did not expect this bout of vitality to last; she was on rather a lot of medication, and while returning home may have filled her with joy for a time, exhaustion would be soon to follow. Every high was accompanied by a low; such was the nature of illness.

And so he dropped her bag right there in the foyer, rather than walking it into the studio, and hastened to follow after her. A spot of tea in the sunroom might be quite nice indeed, but he needed to make sure Jean didn't get it in her head to do any sort of work. The flowers needed tending, but Jean needed her rest, and he would not sacrifice her health for the sake of a few blooms that could be replaced far more easily than Jean herself.

He came marching into the sunroom a few steps behind her, and lingered in the doorway, watching as she floated through the room. Mattie had been watering the plants here and there - when she remembered, which was not often - and so they were not all dried and dead. The heartier varieties still bloomed, and the sight of Jean, pale but steady, drifting among the greenery in the late morning sun stirred something deep in his heart. She was so lovely, his Jean, and nowhere did he feel her presence more strongly than here, in the sunroom, surrounded by the fruits of her labor, these blossoms she had so lovingly tended, brought forth from her own desire for life and beauty. It was right, he thought, that she should be here now; she belonged here.

"Cup of tea?" he asked her softly, and Jean turned to face him slowly, a gentle smile on her face. Her illness had exaggerated the sharpness of her features, but her eyes, her lips, were soft, still, and warm, and the blue of her kerchief made those eyes glow like stars.

"That would be lovely," she told him.

He wanted, very much, to kiss her. He wanted to cross the space between them and draw her into his arms and shower her with every ounce of the love he carried for her. He wanted to tell her how marvelous she was, how happy she had made him, how determined he was to make her well, and whole. He wanted to dance with her there in the sparkling sunlight, and whisper to her of all the dreams he carried in his heart. All these things he wanted, and more besides, but he had made an offer of tea, and so he turned away, rushed into the kitchen and set to work as quickly as he could, eager to return to her.

Perhaps she wanted him to kiss her, too. She had accepted a chaste kiss from him, there in the hospital, had confessed to wanting it as badly as he did, had not turned him away or admonished him for it. Though he did not know entirely how things between them ought to go - after all, they could hardly walk out together when Jean was too weak to leave the house, and he could hardly expect... _more_ while she was so indisposed - he reckoned a kiss or two might not go amiss. Having discovered the depth of his love for her, having discovered that she felt much the same for him, he saw no reason not to act on the simplest of his desires. But suppose Jean thought it inappropriate? She was, after all, a very proper sort of lady, and might object to any such affection between them while they lived beneath the same roof. _I have no idea how much time I have left, but I don't intend to spend it without you,_ that's what she'd told him. He knew what he wished those words meant, but he was rather less clear about Jean's intentions.

 _Don't be a fool,_ he told himself as he piled up a tray with the tea things. _She's a woman, not a riddle._

Armed with his tray he returned to the sunroom, and found Jean already settled on the little sofa there, looking absently at her flowers. At the sound of his footfall she looked up, and smiled again, and he felt some of his doubts dissipate, somewhat. It was so lovely to see her smile, to think he might have been the one to put that smile there.

"Here we are," he said, and set his tray down on the table before sitting himself next to Jean.

He wanted to wrap his arm around her shoulders, but he wasn't sure how such a gesture might be received, and he needed to see to the tea first. Carefully he poured her a cup, one cube of sugar the way she liked, and handed it over to her.

"Thank you," Jean said.

"My pleasure, Jean," he answered.

With their tea in hand they settled back against the sofa together; for a moment Lucien hesitated, wondering what he ought to do, but Jean leaned against him, ever so slightly, and he moved without thinking, snaked his arm around her shoulders and pulled her in close. To his delight she let him, relaxed against his body with a sigh of contentment, and for a few moments they sat together in silence, smiling into their teacups.

"There's rather a lot to be done in here," Jean said after a time, still looking round at her flowers.

"I'd like to help, if I may." Oh, Lucien was a hopeless gardener but he took direction well; he was certain that he could follow her orders, and get the sunroom back into order.

"I'm sure you've more important things to be worrying about. You have your patients, and the police business."

"There is no police business, just now," Lucien told her truthfully. They'd wrapped up their most recent investigation while she was in hospital, and no new bodies had appeared - yet. The work would come, the way it always did, when he least expected it. He relished it, the investigations, the mysteries to solve, but at the moment Jean was the only matter that occupied him.

"Perhaps I will put you to work, then," she said, and he could hear laughter in her voice when she spoke. "Under supervision, of course."

"Of course, my darling," Lucien said, and then he turned his head and pressed a gentle kiss to his temple.

Jean hummed in response to his touch but there was something dissatisfied about the sound that left Lucien wondering whether he'd overstepped the mark. That one little kiss had hardly been salacious, but perhaps she thought their current position too intimate. He hated to think he had offended her, when he himself was so completely charmed by her; could it be that he was already making a hash of things? He desperately hoped not.

"Jean-"

"I don't quite know what we're doing, Lucien," she cut him off before he could ask her what was troubling her. Apparently she intended to tell him anyway.

"We're having a cup of tea," he said slowly.

"That's not what I meant, and you know it." Her tone was gentle, and softened the rough edges of her words. "I don't...I'm not...I've been dreadfully confused since you kissed me that first time," she confessed in a small voice. "You couldn't wait to be rid of me, before I got sick. I couldn't wait to be rid of you, if I'm honest. But now, I can hardly picture my life without you in it. I suppose I just want to know...what it is you want from me. What it is you expect."

He knew that in her own rather indirect way, Jean was asking him whether it was just a few kisses he wanted, a warm body to hold, whether he intended this thing between them to blossom into a love as bright as her flowers, or whether it was no more than a passing fancy. Jean was not the sort to go round kissing a man she did not love, was not the sort to sate her desires and move on without regret. A woman like Jean was a woman who could only be swayed by the full depth of love. They were both lucky then, he thought, that what he felt for her was love indeed.

"Before you took ill, we didn't know one another, not really. I was not on my best behavior after dad died, and I admit I was...I was pushing people away. But these last few months, getting to know, getting to learn about you, getting to see who you really are...you've changed me, Jean. I want to be with you. I want to kiss you, if you'll let me. I want to look after you. And when you're well…" _I want to marry you,_ that's what he wanted to say, but he feared that such a declaration might only frighten her, when she was only just beginning to accept her feelings for him. "When you're well, I'll want you still. When you're well we can do all the things that other people do." _That other couples do,_ he thought, but he couldn't quite get that out, either. He felt like a teenager again, asking to court, but their situation was more complex than that, and he knew it.

"I think I'd like that," she told him, shyly, as if she could hardly believe it herself. "You...you've changed me, too, you know."

"Good, then," he said. He meant to kiss her temple again, but Jean lifted her chin, looked up at him with shining eyes, and he was lost. Ever so slowly, mindful of the tea cups they both held, he lowered his head, and brushed his lips against hers, gently. It was as close as they were going to get, he thought, to any sort of _understanding;_ Jean would not hear talk of marriage while she was unwell, of that he was certain. But it would not be so very long, until her treatments ran their course, and then...and then the world itself would be waiting for them to step out into it, together.


	48. Chapter 48

_8 July 1959_

The days all had a habit of running together, Jean had found. Tuesdays and Thursdays she had her appointments with Lucien; he would come to her, smiling apologetically, would help her from the bed and escort her to the surgery, if she was feeling fine enough for a bit of walk, or carry the medication in to her if she was not. He would sit beside her, whether she lay in bed or on the examination table in the surgery, and they would speak softly to one another, and Jean would smile, content. But with the exception of those brief hours, every moment of every day seemed shockingly repetitious. Oh, Jean had always kept a strict routine, laundry on this day, polishing the silver on that, but each day differed from the last. Not so, now; she slept, she woke, she slept some more, Lucien would sit with her, or Mattie would, and the hours slipped away, unremarkable and interminable.

This particular day, she thought, must have been a Wednesday or a Friday, for she knew she'd sat with Lucien the day before, and the heaving of her stomach confirmed it to be the day after a treatment. She'd spent most of it sleeping; there was a pounding in her head that made her loath to open her eyes. Sometime around 5:00 Mattie came in with a tray of dinner, making excuses for Lucien - who had, as he was wont to do, gotten himself caught up in a murder - and Jean had picked ineffectually at the food before her, and done her best to listen to Mattie's chatter. The girl was a godsend, really; though her eyes were worried she always had a smile for Jean, and brought to her news of the outside world, reminded her that there was a life to be lived, once Jean was well enough to go out and face it. There was life, waiting for her on the other side of this illness. There was Lucien's smile, and a dream of love, and a whole town full of people whose hearts were linked to Jean's, in one way or another. There might be talk, Jean knew, about her and Lucien stepping out together, but at the moment she could not step beyond her doorstep, and so could not devote much energy to worrying over offenses that had not yet been committed. The time might come when gossip would be of a concern to her but it was, she thought, a very long way off.

After supper she must have dozed again, for the soft sound of a footfall in her parlor roused her up from dreams, and she blinked several times, trying to recall when Mattie had left her, trying to work out how long she'd been sleeping. The world beyond her windows was dark, but there was a little clock on the wall, and when she turned her gaze there she found it was only just after eight. Not so terribly late, then, certainly not too late for the visitor who was currently making his way towards her.

It was Lucien, smiling, carrying two cups of tea in his hands. As he approached Jean straightened up in her bed, and out of sheer force of habit she reached up to smooth her hair, but her palm found only the soft satin of her favorite blue kerchief. She smoothed that anyway, and returned Lucien's smile with a grateful heart.

"Did I wake you?" he asked softly as he drew near.

"No," she lied, and reached for the teacup he offered her. Lucien did not hesitate; as soon as she took it he leaned in and pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead, and then settled into the chair Mattie had occupied a bare few hours before.

"How are you feeling?" he asked. Those were always the first words out of his mouth, whenever he saw her, and Jean had long since stopped bristling at his concern. It was not pity that compelled him to ask after her, she knew, and nor was it common courtesy; he genuinely wanted to know how she was faring, and would seek to make her more comfortable wherever he could.

"Well enough," she told him. "A bit nauseous," she confessed wryly when he raised his eyebrow at her, "and my head hurts, but I think the tea will help with both."

"I can make myself scarce, if you need to rest."

"No," she said quickly, reaching for his hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. How strange it was, she thought, that she could touch him now, if she wished, that she could wish it and not regret it, that he could welcome her touch with such warmth in his eyes. From the moment he'd first stumbled into her life her hands had been itching to reach for him, to right him when he wavered, to comfort him when he was low, to hold him close, but for so long she had kept her hands and her wishes to herself. Not so, now; now she was learning, once again, how lovely it could be, to touch and be touched, what comfort she could find in the nearness of another. In the nearness of _him._

"Tell me what you did today," she prompted him. It had been not quite a week since she'd returned from hospital, but every night since then Lucien had come to her after supper, had sat with her, and smiled at her, held her hand and spoken to her gently, and these little chats remained the highlight of her day. It was one piece of predictability that did not gall her; she had begun to take comfort from this new routine they'd forged for themselves, and hoped that it would continue. Knowing that Lucien wanted to see her, that he thought of her, that he had taken it upon himself to create this new little tradition just for them, charmed her utterly. What a dear man he could be!

"Well," he said, "I saw Nell Clasby this morning, and she sends all her love. She says Agnes does too, but you know Agnes."

Jean smiled wryly; yes, she was well acquainted with the Clasby sisters, as different from one another as night from day, and yet both of them lovely, despite their differences.

"And we had a bit of a breakthrough with our murder victim."

"The lad who was hit by the car?"

The cases were beginning to run together, for Jean; before she fell ill she had prided herself on the strength of her memory, her ability to recall people and places and their connection to one another with crystal clarity, but the drugs and the sleep had made her foggy, and so many of those recollections drifted away from her, water falling through a sieve.

"The very same," Lucien confirmed, and Jean felt just a bit of relief at that. The lad had been run down on one of the quieter roads leading away from town and towards the farms that dotted the countryside, and the town, according to Lucien, had been in an uproar ever since, distraught that someone could do such a thing, strike an innocent bystander and simply drive away as if it were nothing.

"There was rather a lot of damage to his body, of course," Lucien said, "and we waited to do the autopsy until more of the bruising had developed. Well, today, we finally cut him open, and it turns out the lad was shot before he was run over. We missed the bullet hole initially, because the car made such a mess of him."

"How awful," Jean shuddered. It was terrible to think about, but it was Lucien's work, and Jean was always eager to hear how he was spending his days, eager to share in whatever mystery fascinated him in the moment. At times his mind was a mystery to her, but with each of these little conversations another piece of him seemed to reveal itself.

"Matthew also found out a little bit more about our victim today. He's not a local, you wouldn't know him," he added quickly, for he must have seen by her expression that Jean was about to ask for the boy's name. Perhaps she was not the only one who found these little chats illuminating.

"But we have an avenue of inquiry, and that's promising."

"The _police_ have an avenue of inquiry," Jean chided him gently. From this distance she could not reach him as she would have liked, and so she smoothed her hand absently over his forearm, the only part of him close enough to touch. "You do worry me, rushing off into these investigations."

"I'm always careful, Jean, you know that," he said. She scoffed, and he laughed, reached for her hand and brought it to his lips for a quick kiss that made her cheeks flood with heat. The ease of his affections, the bright, hopeful happiness of his eyes...sometimes when they sat together like this, Jean found her mind wandering, wishing for something else. Something more. Wishing she could sit beside him on the sofa, wishing she could let her hand drift through his hair, wishing her weakness did not preclude them from exploring the warmth between them more earnestly. If she felt well, perhaps his kisses would not land on her hand, or her forehead. If she felt well, perhaps she could stand beside him, and let those strong arms wrap around her. If only she were well…

Then again, she thought wryly, perhaps not. If she were well, there would be cause to worry about the gossips. She would need to guard herself more fully, for to spend time...getting _acquainted_ with a man who slept just down the hall was the first step on the road to ruin. Perhaps, she told herself, she ought to be content with what she had.

"Careful is not a word I would use to describe you, Lucien," she told him, arching her eyebrow at him in accusation.

"Well then, I shall promise to be _more_ careful, how's that? I have rather a lot of plans for the future, you know, and I mean to make good on all my intentions."

His voice was low, and soft, and full of promise, and just the sound of it made Jean's stomach flutter in a way that had nothing at all to do with the medications she was taking. How easily he could slip from jovial to passionate; how easily he could drag her down with him. He meant to make good on his _intentions,_ and while Jean could not be certain what those intentions were in their entirety, she was not a fool, and she could see what it was he wanted when she looked into his eyes. There was a fire burning there, a fire just for her, a fire that told her she was not the only one thinking about what might happen, once she was well, what they could do together when she was strong enough to leave her bed behind for good. Those eyes, and his _intentions_ , and his forearm warm beneath her hand; she had always known he was handsome, but when she looked at him now, broad and strong and burning for her, the tug she felt low in her belly was so much more than a response to a handsome man. This was something else, a want that ran deeper than a moment's interest, a yearning that would not be satisfied until she felt his hands on her, felt the warmth of his kiss. There was so _much_ she wanted, so much she had not allowed herself to consider before now, so much possibility, waiting for her, for them, as soon as she was well.

"You'd better," she told him, her voice a little unsteady, and he smiled at her warmly, and kissed her hand again. It was enough to tell her that he understood; Jean had intentions of her own, and she was quite looking forward to the day when Lucien would be able to satisfy those intentions, completely.


	49. Chapter 49

_14 July 1959_

Jean was almost certain today was Tuesday. Some of the ladies from Sacred Heart had come round for a chat after mass on Sunday, had sat with Jean on her little sofa and sipped her tea and tried not to stare at her bald head, the dark circles beneath her eyes, her hands thin where they rested atop the soft white blanket draped over her lap. That had been Sunday, and Jean was positive she must have slept twice since then, for the night after the church ladies left Lucien had asked her how she was faring, not being able to go to church, had even offered to speak to Father Morton about coming round so that Jean might take communion, no matter how awkward that conversation would have been. The following night, however, his mouth had been full of speculation about the murdered lad, pierced by a bullet and then run down by a car on a quiet country road. Today _must_ have been Tuesday, but the little clock in her bedroom told her it was nearly two o'clock, and Lucien had not come for their usual appointment. However reckless and sometimes shortsighted he might be, he had never, not once, missed one of her appointments; he was, above all else, a dedicated physician. So then, where on earth was he?

For a time she lay, waiting for him, watching the ticking of the clock, straining to listen to the house beyond her bedroom door, eager for some sound of him. None came, and the hour hand slipped to 2, and Jean's patience began to crumble. Likely it was nothing, likely he'd only been waylaid somewhere out in town, but his absence distressed her; with no answers to be found the questions multiplied in her mind, wondering if something ill had befallen him, wondering if he was well, wondering if there was anything she ought to be doing to help him. She hated this idleness, lying still in her bed while life rushed on all around her, and so she mustered her strength, and rose from her bed. It had been several days since her last treatment, and so though she was weak her mind felt clear enough, and she moved slowly, carefully picking her way from the studio out into the house. Mattie was off on her rounds, and there were no patients scheduled, and stillness hung heavy in the air in a way that made the hairs stand up on the back of Jean's neck.

 _He's fine,_ she told herself. _He just got distracted, and you'll feel silly later, when you see that nothing was the matter, and you got yourself all worked up for no good reason._

It was no use; logic would not keep her anxiety at bay, and she would not relax until she heard his voice, saw for herself that he was well.

In the kitchen she found the telephone, and rang Danny at the station. For several long seconds her agitation mounted, as he did not answer, but at last a voice came calling down the line.

"Ballarat police," he said.

"Danny, it's Jean. Is Lucien there?"

There was a moment's pause; she shouldn't have called him _Lucien._ Oh, she was only speaking to Danny, Danny who came round for supper and saw Jean and Lucien talking softly to one another and knew very well how they got on together, but still it seemed a foolish misstep, a breach of courtesy, a familiarity she shouldn't have used while on the phone to the police. Even if it was only Danny.

"I haven't seen the Doc today," Danny confessed. "He might have come round this morning, but I haven't heard anyone say."

"Right." If Lucien wasn't at the station, where on earth _was_ he? He'd promised her that he would be more careful, but she was beginning to suspect his curiosity had got the better of him. It would be unkind to expect him to change his very nature simply because she wanted him to; Jean knew full well who he was, what he was like, and she loved him for it. But the thought that he had got himself into some sort of mischief, that he might be out there somewhere now, hurt and alone because he had acted without thinking, left Jean heartsick and terrified. "Well, if you do see him, please tell him to ring me."

"Of course, Auntie Jean."

The call ended, and Jean was at a loss as to what to do next. She could hardly go out looking for him; she could see through the kitchen window that he had taken the car, and she'd not get far on foot. Even if she could, she had no notion of where to find him, how to even begin such a search. There was nothing she could do, nothing but wait and worry. Jean had waited for a man once before, and that long, terrible waiting had ended in grief. She could not bear the thought of submitting to it once again, and yet she had no choice.

As she was in the kitchen already she fixed herself a cup of tea, and carried it into the sitting room. She would be comfortable in there, she thought, and close enough to hear the telephone if it rang, to hear the front door when it opened. When - if - Lucien returned, she would hear him at once, and then she could let go of this terrible, churning fear. Only the phone did not ring, and the door did not open, and the minutes slipped slowly by. Jean finished her tea in solitude and silence, trying to recall what Lucien had told her about his case, searching through her fractured memories for some indication of where he might have gone, but no revelation came to her. Still the time passed, on and on; she remained where she was, frozen in an armchair, staring out the window, and the lonesomeness and the worry built and built within her until she felt she might well crumble beneath the weight of it all. They had been so _close,_ she thought; she wouldn't have to undergo treatment much longer, and then she would begin to recover, and then she and Lucien could have all the things they'd dreamed about, the warmth of one another, the quiet dances, circling closer and closer to a union she was beginning to suspect might just last forever. Forever was a beautiful thought so long as Lucien was by her side; without him, forever seemed an unbearable prospect. It just wasn't _fair,_ she thought, that she should have one small taste of joy, and then spend all the rest of her days in grief.

 _Please,_ she prayed, _please, bring him back to me._

Sometime around five the front door opened and Jean's heart leapt into her throat, desperate for relief, but it was Mattie who came walking through it, not Lucien. The girl had not seen or heard from him, either, and her worried eyes echoed the fear in Jean's own heart. Mattie rushed upstairs to change out of her uniform, and then joined Jean in her silent vigil, her presence a comfort, though not so comforting as Lucien's would have been. At six o'clock Jean roused herself, and fetched a bit of supper for the pair of them; they ate in worried silence, tense and uncertain. When Jean rose to gather up the dinner things her steps faltered, and Mattie sent her off to bed with promises that she would see to the washing up, and inform Jean the second there was any news of Lucien. With her legs too weak to hold her and her heart breaking in her chest Jean shuffled back to her bed, curled beneath the blankets, and wept.

 _Where are you, my Lucien?_ She wondered. A few hours' absence might be easily explained away, but he had been gone all day, had not called in at the station or at home, had not told anyone where he had gone. From the kitchen she could make out the sound of Mattie speaking, but no voice answered; perhaps the girl was making calls of her own, inquiring after him. Perhaps Jean should have done the same, should have rung for Matthew and demanded that he send out a search party. If Jean had only been well she would have gone out herself, but her body would not sustain her, and her grief and her fear and her tears left her so wrung out that for a time she dozed fitfully, dreams of Lucien dancing her through her mind, insubstantial and unknowable.

It was very, very late when the quiet sound of the front door opening pulled Jean up from her slumber. The doors to the studio had been left open, in the desperate hope that she might hear him come home. She held her breath, listening; there, the sound of the door closing again, there, the shuffle of a coat, there, the sound of another door - Lucien's bedroom, perhaps - there, silence again. If it _had_ been Lucien, she thought that surely he would come to her; he came to her every night, after supper, with a cup of tea and a smile just for her, but as the minutes passed he did not come, and her worries redoubled. Who could have been at the door, if not him? And if it _was_ him, why had he not come to her?

Jean was through with waiting, and so she once more rose from her bed. With her feet as bare as her head, wearing only an old flannel nightgown, she set out from her bedroom, trailing her hand along the wall for support as she went, knees trembling from exhaustion, hands trembling from fear. In the foyer she found the front door locked, and Lucien's hat upon the peg. Just the sight of that hat, that hat that had not been there earlier in the day, that hat that must have been upon his head when he set forth, and had now returned to its rightful place, offered her some measure of relief; wherever he had been, he had come home to her at last. The hat did not answer her questions, however, and Jean was not in the habit of going to sleep without speaking to him first. She would have her answers from him.

Perhaps it was the lateness of the hour that made her bold, or her chagrin at having been kept in the dark for so long. Whatever the reason, her heart began to race, and she did not hesitate, did not even knock before she slipped through his bedroom door.

It had only been a few minutes since he'd come home, and she had expected to find him shuffling about the room, preparing for bed. The light was out, however, and his clothes were piled haphazardly at the foot of the bed, his body already stretched out beneath the blankets. Jean's eyes took a moment to adjust to the darkness, but his were already accustomed, and he saw her before she saw him.

"Jean?" he whispered, his voice ragged and full of confusion, as if he couldn't quite bring himself to believe that she were real.

"I'm here," she answered. She had never been so glad to hear her own name in all her life; he was here, _home,_ and alive, and talking to her, and tears gathered in the corners of her eyes, thinking how grateful she was to find him well, and yet thinking how dreadful it felt, to know that one man's safety could hold such sway over her own heart. To love another was to risk, every day, the kind of devastation she had prayed she'd never feel again. It was a gamble, to hope that love would be worth the grief; she could only pray that Lucien's love would be worth all the trouble it could bring her. Somehow, she rather thought it might be.

He did not rise, and so Jean made her way slowly over to the empty side of his bed. She meant only to sit down beside him, but he saw her coming and threw back the blankets, revealed the broad expanse of his heavy chest and a pale white bandage over his heart, and so she slid in beside him, stretched herself out, and when his arms reached for her she let him pull her in close. It was the single most improper thing she had done in decades, to let a shirtless man, a man who had kissed her, a man whose heart, whose handsome face, whose strong body occupied so much of her thoughts pull her into his bed, but there was nowhere else she wanted to be, and she loved him too desperately to leave him.

"You frightened me," she whispered, her head coming to rest against his shoulder. Cautiously she reached for him, let her fingertips trail against the bandage, wondering what on earth he'd gotten himself into, wondering just how close she'd come to losing him.

"I'm sorry," he whispered back, and his voice was so broken that she knew that he was being sincere. "I've been a fool, Jean."

"Will you tell me what you've done?"

"Can I tell you in the morning?" She was desperate to know, where he had gone, why, how he had been injured, how dire his circumstances were, but he sounded so lost, so tired, so full of grief, that she could not bring herself to press for more. In the morning he would tell her, and it would make no difference if she found out now, or later. Whatever had happened it was done, and he was home, now, and holding her.

"Of course," she answered, and turned her head, pressed a tender kiss against his skin to let him know that she understood, and that she was not cross with him. Perhaps she would be cross, come morning, when she learned the full extent of his foolishness, but in the moment she was tired, and too full of love for him to leave any room for anger.

"For now I just...I just want to hold you," he confessed, and Jean flung her arm out across his chest, and pulled him in closer, buried her face in the crook of his neck and felt his own lips brush against the crown of her head. She was too weak to leave his bed of her own accord, and did not want to in any case. Beneath her he was warm, and solid, and steady, and she had not known comfort like this for so many years that the thought of giving it up was unbearable to her now.

"I'm here, Lucien," she whispered into the darkness. "You're safe now. You can rest."

A tremor ran through him, a stifled sob, perhaps, but they clung to one another, and there in his bed they found peace, and drifted off to sleep, together.


	50. Chapter 50

_15 July 1959_

Lucien woke to an unfamiliar warmth in his bed, an unfamiliar softness in his heart, an unfamiliar pain in his chest. It took a moment for reality to resolve itself around him, for the glass-shard shadows of his dreams to fall away and leave instead the radiance of this most ordinary, and most extraordinary, of moments. It was a morning like any other, and yet unlike any he had ever known, for while the butter-yellow softness of the rising sun streaming through the curtains was familiar to him, the comfort of Jean asleep in his arms was a wholly new experience.

It had not been his intention the night before that she should sleep beside him the whole night through; he'd not had any intentions at all, truth be told, had wanted only to hold her for as long as she would allow, and had not ever imagined she would allow this much. She was tucked in close to him, her back against his chest, his chin brushing the soft smooth skin of her scalp, his arm flung out across the gentle curve of her waist, her toes tucked beneath his calf as if they had burrowed there of their own accord, drawn to the heat of him. Her toes were always cold, but not so now, not here with him. Here, with him, she was warm, and soft, and he could think of nothing more wonderful than this, waking with her in his arms. They would need to move soon; Mattie would be awake before too long, and if she did not find Jean in the kitchen she was liable to go looking for her, and it would not do for Mattie to discover whose bed Jean currently occupied. Oh, Jean was far too proper and far too ill to be getting up to mischief, and likely Mattie knew that, but Jean had her pride, and Lucien would not infringe upon it willfully.

"Jean," he whispered, and let his lips brush sweetly against the crown of her head. "Wake up, my darling."

She stirred in his arms, her waking quick but peaceful; she began to stretch, as if to shake off the last of her own dreams, but as her body came into contact with his she froze in place, the feeling of her pressed against him so delicious he could have wept with gratitude. Only the day before he had come so close, so damnably close, to losing this, losing her, forever, and having her with him now reminded him of a promise he had made to her, a promise he swore now that he would work more diligently to keep. Caution did not come easily to him, but if he was to have Jean in his bed as his reward he reckoned it was a sacrifice he could make, and gladly.

"Lucien," she whispered, and his heart sang in his chest, for she did not sound cross or disturbed by their closeness; she sounded only gently awed, as Lucien was himself, as if she were equally delighted to find herself in his embrace.

"Good morning, Jean," he whispered. The curve of her shoulder had slid out from beneath the blankets; her faded flannel nightgown covered every inch of her skin, but he kissed her shoulder just the same, enchanted by the very notion that she was here, with him, that he could kiss her if he wished and she would not run from him. In fact, she did quite the opposite; she hummed, and found his hand where it rested against her belly, pressed her palm to his fingers and held him close to her.

"I suppose I ought to leave," she said then.

"Stay," he answered at once. "Just another minute. Just...just stay. Please."

He did not know when next he'd be allowed to enjoy such a blessing as this, and he was in no rush to see this moment end. Though she was right, though he knew she needed to leave him, he could not bear to be parted from her.

"You were going to tell me," she said, "in the morning. What happened to you."

All the beautiful, soft feelings of love and devotion that had stirred within his heart shimmered and stuttered, fear and grief slipping in between them and leaving him full of doubt instead. Yes, he'd promised to tell her the truth _in the morning,_ and the morning had come, and he knew he owed it to her now, but he was loath to breathe life into such wretchedness.

"I had a lead, on the murder investigation," he began slowly.

"Oh, Lucien." The grip of her hand tightened against his, as if she would have pulled him back from his own recklessness, if only it were in her power. "Why didn't you tell the police?"

"Matthew said he needed more evidence. I decided to find him some. I went round to speak to the suspect myself."

 _I was a bloody fool._ It was only that Lucien had been so certain, and that so often when suspects were confronted with the truth of their ill deeds they caved to pressure and submitted to the inevitable, and he had thought himself strong enough, and clever enough, to best one young lad who sold bootleg liquor out of his father's barn. _Pride cometh before the fall,_ and all that.

"He pulled a knife on me. I'm ashamed to say he got rather a bit closer than I would have liked."

Jean rolled over in his arms suddenly then, grey eyes flashing up at him in the wan light of the dawn, her hand immediately drawn to the bandage on his chest.

"He cut you?" Her face was full of horror and worry, and he could not blame her for that; he felt the same in his own heart. The knife had glanced across his pectoral, sliced through his shirt and through his skin, too close to his heart for comfort. The wound had taken several stitches to close it, and burned like fire this morning.

"I'm afraid my shirt is ruined beyond even your capable skill," Lucien said. It was a feeble attempt at levity, and it fell flat; Jean frowned at him as she covered the bandage on his chest with her palm. Though Lucien had carried her in his arms on more than one occasion, lowered her gently into bed, he had never been quite so close to her as this, her legs tangled up with his, her fingertips touching his bare flesh, her eyes, uncovered by hair or a scarf, glowing up at him like terrible stars, and her proximity now left him ragged with longing. What he wanted, more than anything else, was to forget his fight with the murderer, to forget how close he had come to calamity, and lose himself in Jean instead. It was what he wanted, but he knew he could not have it; he was certain that she was too disturbed by his confession to permit him such liberties now.

"You promised me you would be _careful,_ " she said, and her voice was full of hurt. Not the hurt of betrayal, he thought; it sounded more like the hurt of fear. It frightened her, to think of losing him, and though he felt himself a fool for having put himself in this position he could not help but think that was a lovely thing, her regard for him. He loved her, wholly and completely, and she did not want to lose him, and that seemed to him to bode well for his future, a future he now cautiously imagined might have her in it.

"I did," he agreed. "And I will be. Lesson learned, my darling. I want to come home to you more than I want to catch any murderer."

"Good," she said, her fingertips curling against his chest. "I can't lose you, not now. Not before you've...made good on your _intentions_."

Her cheeks reddened slightly as she spoke that word _intentions_ , as if she were shocked by her own boldness, but she did not look away from his face, let him see in her eyes all the love, all the hope she held for him. That night he'd spoken to her of his _intentions_ he had been testing the waters, wondering whether she might permit more than a chaste kiss to her temple, wondering whether she might welcome it, wondering what exactly it was she envisioned for their future, wondering if her dreams ran the same course as his own. There had been moments already when she had permitted him to kiss her, but they had been moments of reckoning, emotions boiling over, moments when he felt a kiss was the only way to express to her how desperately he needed her, the only way to keep her close to hand. Would she accept his kiss in another moment, a moment when that kiss was not a plea for clemency but a promise of passion? For it was passion that lurked within his own heart, a fierce, hungry desire to cleave to her, to bind them both together, to feel the satin slide of her skin against his own, to hear her call out his name in bliss. He had spoken to her of his _intentions,_ and that day she had looked at him as if she understood, and wanted the same. This morning she looked at him, and he saw intentions of her own shining in her eyes. She _wanted_ him, he realized with a start, not just to protect her, to comfort her, to warm her toes as she slept, but to woo her, to romance her, to pour out all his passions on her and taste her own in kind. The words she had chosen now rang through his head like a bell; she _wanted_ him to make good on his intentions, every single one.

And _Christ,_ but he would do so right now, if she'd let him, would roll her beneath him this very minute. She was beautiful, and watching him, and soft in his arms, and he burned with want of her. Perhaps the timing was not the best; his cavalier disregard for his safety had wounded her, and she was still ill, and prone to tiring easily, and despite his own disinterest in his reputation Jean treasured her own. Perhaps now was not his moment, but perhaps he might be allowed just a modicum of grace, a sweet indulgence to see him through until she was well, until he could love her properly, openly, as she deserved.

"Jean," he breathed her name, for as much as her boldness had surprised her it had all but scrambled his thoughts, left him hardly capable of speech. In answer she raised one delicate hand, the tip of her forefinger trailing softly over his bottom lip, down his chin, her eyes full of longing, her lips parted as if ready for his kiss, and something deep within his chest seemed to snap. The brush of her finger over his lip, the tenderness of it, the wonder, the yearning in her gaze, was more than he could bear.

Recklessly he surged towards her, and she arched to meet him, her hand coming to rest on his neck while her soft breasts pressed hard against his bare chest, and then his lips crashed into hers, and he drowned. This kiss was not like the others; Jean did not take a moment to adjust, was not shy and uncertain beneath him. Instead she met his passion with one of her own, her lips opening to his at once, her tongue seeking his while she turned her nails against his neck. With his arm still looped around her waist he pressed his palm flat to the small of her back, and drew her in hard against him. The swell of her bum fitted tight to his own hips as they slept had left him half-hard when he woke, and though fear had caused his arousal to abate somewhat her kiss threatened to bring it back to life at once, and he knew that she would feel it, through his thin sleeping pants, through her threadbare flannel. Let her feel it, he thought, let her see how desperately he wanted her, how he needed her; her teeth caught against his bottom lip and in the next second she had flung her leg round his hip, drawn him in closer still.

What a delight she was, the most marvelous surprise; he groaned into her mouth and felt her grin in response, and still she kissed him, cradled him close, desire building to a fever pitch between them. All thoughts of propriety and boundaries to be respected had fled from Lucien's mind; all that remained was the warmth and the beauty and the taste of Jean. Teasingly she pulled back from him, but his lips chased after her, swallowing the sound of her laugh while with his hand still flat against her back he encouraged her to rock against him. For a moment he lost himself on that sea of pleasure, every tiny sound, every soft breath, every movement of her body against his new and beautiful and full of rapture, erasing every thought of pain that had come before it.

At last, however, Jean pulled back from him for good, buried her face in the crook of his neck and gasped against his skin. She was breathless, and perhaps not all from passion; she was still unwell, and did not have much energy these days. Perhaps their clinch had been too much for her, exertion beginning to push her past her limits, and so he let her rest in his arms, her leg still looped round his hip. Idly he reached for her, let his palm ghost along her thigh where nightgown had been flung back to allow her better access to him, but he respected the barrier of the fabric that still covered her, sought only to touch her, for as long as he was able, and not take more from her than she was willing to give. There would be time for more later, he promised himself. A lifetime stretched out in front of them, and as soon as she was well they could begin to explore the promise of this passion to its fullest extent. It was a dream, and one he clung to with both hands.

"Lucien," Jean whispered, her lips soft against his neck. "You must look after yourself, for me. While I can't. Promise me you will."

"I promise, my darling," he swore to her. For months now he had been looking after her, but he recalled how it had been in the beginning, how Jean had done her best to care for him, even when he spurned her efforts. No one could look after him so well as Jean had done, he thought, but he would try, for her sake, for the sake of the promise of more moments like this one, moments when she was close, and holding him.


	51. Chapter 51

_15 July 1959_

"I am sorry about this," Lucien told her as the needle slipped once more into the crook of her elbow. Comfortable in her bed, Jean just sighed; she didn't even feel it, anymore. The apology was about more than just the needle, she knew; he'd missed her appointment the day before, and would now have to administer treatment two days in a row to make up for it, but today was Wednesday, and he hadn't cleared his calendar in advance for her, and he'd had patients to see in the morning, and he'd had to go down to the station and talk with Matthew about the incident the day before. They'd had to wait until after supper to begin the process, and she'd have to go to sleep with the drugs fresh in her system, and wake up and do it all again tomorrow. _Friday is going to be difficult,_ she thought, but she did not give voice to her concerns. Lucien was feeling guilty enough already.

"It's not for much longer," she reminded him. Beside her bed Lucien finished faffing about with the IV, and then he settled back in his chair, crossed his arms over his broad chest and stretched his long legs out in front of him, the tension leaving him at the end of a long and trying day. Though he made no mention of it she thought his wound must pain him; _what a pair we make._ At her question the smallest flicker of a smile flashed across his face.

"No," he agreed. "Two more weeks, and you'll be done."

"And then we can put all this behind us."

A flicker of hurt flashed in his eyes and she reached out with her free hand, let her palm settle comfortingly on his knee.

"Well," she corrected herself, "not all of it."

They could put the cancer behind them. The fear and the grief and the pain, her weakness and limitations, his guilt, all of that could become no more than a memory. The love they had found together over the last few months, the hope and the joy and the dreams for the future, those things they would not forget. The last few months had been some of the most difficult, most abject, most terrible months of her entire life, but they had given him to her, and her to him, had brought Jean and Lucien to a place of understanding with one another, to a place where she could fall asleep in his arms, and feel only peace. And one day, maybe one day soon, when she laid down beside him they wouldn't just sleep. Maybe one day she would lay down beside him, and know she would never have to fall asleep without him for all the rest of her days. That love made the rest of it worth it, somehow. Oh, maybe they would have found their way together without the cancer. Maybe he would have set aside his pride and asked her to stay; maybe she would have set aside her own, and agreed. Maybe they would always find their way together, no matter the road they chose. This time, though, in this life, in this world, they had chosen _this_ path, and she did not regret a moment of it.

"No," he said warmly, lifted his hand and let it settle over hers on his knee. "Not all of it."

She'd never forget the warmth of his arms around her, the strength of his body carrying her out into the night, his determination, his damned stubborn dedication the only thing that could save her when she was too weak to save herself. She'd never forget the way he was looking at her now, like she was the most precious, most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. Like he loved her.

"Tell me, Jean," he said then, and there was a curious note to his voice she recognized all too well. They had an hour to burn, sitting here while the medication dripped slowly into her veins, and they often used this time to question one another, to ferret out the little details about one another, little pieces of the lives they had lived before they met, cementing the life they were building together. "When was the last time you went to the sea?"

Something terrible tugged low in her belly, something that felt an awful lot like shame. It used to happen more often when Thomas was in the house, the differences in their backgrounds made stark by his patrician attitude. Lucien could not have been more unlike his father, and Lucien had always treated her as an equal, even when they didn't like one another very much. But sometimes, even with him, Jean felt almost as if they'd come from different planets, their lives had traveled such divergent roads. There was no need for shame, she knew; she'd lived a life she loved, and was proud of it, and Lucien knew it, and loved her just as she was. Still, though, there was no arguing with that primal piece of her heart. It would always be with her.

"I've never been," she confessed. "Young Christopher's been stationed in Adelaide, and I thought I might go to visit him, before…" Her voice trailed off. Before she'd fallen ill, back when she was thinking of leaving him, she'd had so many dreams for herself. None of those dreams would come true, now. She'd not have her little cottage, decorated just the way she wanted it. She'd not have a life where she stood alone and proud on her own two feet. But she would have something different, now; she would have Lucien. How, in what way, for how long, she could not say, but she would have _him,_ and they would make new dreams together.

"You...not even to Melbourne?" he asked, surprised, and, she thought, a little disappointed on her behalf. A man like him, he probably thought everyone had been to the seaside. He'd been shipped off to boarding school in Melbourne as a child, gone to university in Europe, traveled throughout Asia. He'd been _everywhere,_ and Jean had never even left boring old Ballarat, never been farther than Bendigo.

"No," she said.

"Well, then." Lucien leaned forward in his chair, caught her hand in both of his, sandwiched cold fingers between warm palms while his eyes lit up like he had just been handed the most wonderful gift. "When you're well," he said, "I think we should go. Rent a little cottage somewhere, somewhere no one knows our names. We can go to Adelaide, if you like, pop in on Christopher and Ruby. And you can feel the sand on your toes."

Propriety and caution had dictated every moment of Jean's life for years, and her first instinct was to say _no._ She could hardly slip away for a dirty weekend with her employer, when they were not married, when they had not even discussed it. If anyone found out, her reputation would be in tatters, and so would his, and then where would they be? Besides, she'd let Christopher take her before they were wed, and the penance she'd had to pay for that blissful sin had nearly broken her. And yet…

And yet she was older now, and wiser, and she'd never have another child, thanks to the surgery that had saved her life. She _loved_ Lucien, and she had spent too long living in fear. Having felt the icy fingers of death winding round her heart she was eager now to _live._ They could tell people she was going to Adelaide to see her son, when she was well, and make excuses for Lucien accompanying her. A single woman on her own, she would be safer with a man to chaperone her, and there was nothing salacious about a widow, particularly one recovering from cancer, visiting her child. And if they rented a little cottage instead of booking separate hotel rooms, if she fell asleep with the sound of the sea and his warm breathing in her ear, no one would ever need know but the pair of them.

"That would be...lovely," she said carefully. It might not ever come to be; most of Lucien's madcap schemes fell to pieces under closer inspection, but it was nice to dream, and his answering smile was brighter than the sun itself.

* * *

Sleep would not come for her, after Lucien left her. They talked a while, about Adelaide, about his travels, about their children, about what they might do when she was well, and then he kissed her forehead and carried his equipment away, turning off the lights as he went. The room was dark, and she was warm enough, and there had not been time yet for the medication to sink its teeth into her. She should have slept, but she felt restless, instead. So much had changed so quickly; sleeping in Lucien's bed the night before had been a comfort to them both, but it had also left Jean raw, and aching for him. She could not hide, any more, from the way she felt for him. One night in his bed had torn down all her defenses, left her exposed. He mattered to her, more than anyone else, held the power to save her and break her in his hands, and she wanted him. When she closed her eyes she could still recall the way it felt, the heat of his kiss, the desire in his palm where it ghosted over her thigh, the solid hardness of him beneath her when she flung her leg over his hip. She _wanted_ him, wanted him to touch her, to take her, to claim her, wanted him to be _hers,_ and with her always. And yet he could not be; there was so much yet for them to sort through, so many questions they had not answered, could not answer until she was well. Sleeping beside him had been a revelation, and she did not know when next she'd be granted such grace again. All her life she had done her best to be patient, but she had learned, now, just how precious every second was, and she hated to think she must waste one more single minute in waiting.

But apparently, she was not the only one. It was well after ten, and Mattie had long since gone off to bed, and the house was dark and quiet, and so she heard the sound of her bedroom door opening clear as a bell. No footsteps followed after, though she held her breath and waited for them. From her bed she could not see the door, but she reckoned she knew who had come to her so late, and why he lingered in the doorway, why he warred with himself on the other side of the studio instead of coming straight to her. Reckless, he was always reckless, but he was learning restraint for her sake. She almost wished he wouldn't.

"Lucien?" she called softly, and in the silence she heard his sharp breath, though she could not say whether it was a gasp of surprise or a sigh of relief. The sound of her voice moved him, though; she listened to his feet, soft on the carpet, padding across the room until he was beside her bed, looking down on her in the darkness. His hair was mussed, and he wore only a light pair of pajama trousers, his feet and chest bare, that stark white bandage still fixed in place. He had been lying in his own bed, thinking of her, just as she was thinking of him, but he had done what she could not, and found the courage to reach for what he wanted, what they both wanted. Perhaps it was time for her to do the same.

"Please," she whispered in the darkness, and then she shuffled over to the other side of the bed, and then he was crawling in beside her, and her heart did a funny little flip in her chest as his heavy weight sank into the mattress.

"I couldn't sleep," he breathed into the darkness, his voice hoarse with longing.

Jean took one deep breath, marshaled all her strength, and then slid closer to him, let her head come to rest on his shoulder, sighed as his arm wrapped around her waist, as her own hand settled on his chest, as both their hearts cried out with relief, and calmed for the first time since he'd left her.

"I couldn't sleep, either," she confessed. "Not without you here."

"I'll be right here, Jean," he whispered. "As long as you'll let me."

 _Always,_ she wanted to say, but the word felt heavy in her mouth, and she swallowed it back. Surely, she thought, it was too soon for _always._ She could not say it, not yet, but she felt it just the same. His warmth, the solid, steady presence of him beneath her, soothed her, and his palm drew careful circles on her hip until they both drifted off to sleep, relieved now that they had one another.


End file.
